Easter Eggs and Tummy Aches

Easter comes along once a year and every year I forget how much I love those colored marshmallow eggs with the candy shells! It only takes about five to make me never want another one, at least until the next year...

The girls on the other hand can eat them until I say stop! It always amazes me how much candy kids can eat without getting a tummy ache.

We went to San Marcos for Easter and had a short but fun trip. We all crammed in our little Honda civic for ten hours. Jaime and I anticipated alot of, "Stop, touching me...!" or "Can you scoot over....". But the girls were really pleasant to each other for the most part.

Vanita, Jaime's mom, had planned an easter egg hunt for the kids. Rachel and Jacob came over and they had a blast. Gabby of course didn't wear shoes, which is typical. She didn't account for the splinters slowing down the competition and she wouldn't take any help from me either.
I am not really the type mom that has traditions. I was glad that grandmama had thought it through. They even had these painted egg shells that were filled with confetti. Its apparently a Mexican tradition, which I can't remember the name of, but I thought it was awful. You take these eggs filled with tiny pieces of paper and you smash them on peoples heads.

You might notice in the sister in law picture, we have it all over us. No one told my kids that you didn't have to smash it very hard for it to bust. It just wasn't a pleasant experience.









Jaime and I spent alot of time in San Antonio, while Aubrey kept the kids. She took them outside to take pictures. I think she did such a good job.
Your kids really do grow up so fast. You almost forget to document the experience. When we got home Aubrey was so excited to show me all the pictures she took. There were close to 200. She is a much more dedicated aunt than I am a mother. I remember when she spent half a year with us in Africa she took so many pictures of the girls when she was there. Gabby was just a baby, I appreciate those pictures now.

Playing With The Girls

Gabby and Chuck, the dog I named after my father-in-law, have been the best of friends the very moment we brought him home as a puppy. The first thing she does in the morning is go outside to let him lick her face. He brings her any toy he can find in the yard, and she plays with him for what seems like forever. He has grown to be so big and is still not even a year old.
Now Chuck is not always an active participant when they play. He has figured out that if he lays down, Gabby has to pull him around the yard to try to get the toy out of his mouth. It's good exercise for Gabby at least.

Sometimes your kids are so beautiful its frightening. Hannah takes my breath away. The best part is that she doesn't even know it yet. Even though she is 14 she still doesn't mind being goofy with us on the trampoline.

We worked so hard to get a mid-air shot and she was quite proud of herself in this one.

One day Jaime and I left the house for a few minutes and as soon as we were down the street, Autumn calls me and says, "Mom, Gabby is in a little bit of a bind. Her hair is caught in the trampoline net zipper.. We might need to cut her out..."

I, of course, told her to wait, and I would come right back. But, it was too late. Hannah had already cut her out...Needless to say, Gabby has her hair a little shorter now...Sisters take care of each other that way!

Sprite is growling at her. Its a stand off.

The Three musketeers. We have been having our house painted. So Jaime put up the "tent house". Its so big, it has a living room in the middle of the bedrooms. He bought it thinking it would tempt me to want to go camping with them. It hasn't, but at least they have more room when they go without me! The girls have enjoyed sleeping in the back yard for the past week.

It is finally hot enough to go swimming! Autumn has never really enjoyed wearing clothes. I knew I should have tried harder to keep them dressed when we were in Africa!

We spend alot of time in the hammock. The weather has been so beautiful the last week or so. So today we thought we would go out and just swing in it for awhile.

Take a few goofy pictures of me...

Of ourselves....and it was fun until....

Chuck wanted a picture too....IN the hammock with us..

This is where the fun ended, because he quickly realized that he was stuck and panicked to get out, and that is how Gabby and I were dumped out of the hammock!!

My kids have always made me laugh with the silly things they do and say. They are so random in their humor and it is so honest and pure, that it just really makes me laugh outloud...













There are those rare moments though that I can return the favor..Gabby said she couldn't smile, so I told her I would tell her something funny...

Our plan back fired though because she kept laughing, until she couldn't breathe and her eyes starting tearing up....











Over all it was a pretty great day, just hanging with my girls. WE needed some time as a family. I don't spend enough time with them and time is so precious at this age. Girls need their moms.

My Parents in Town

For as long as I can remember my dad has been a golfer. If he was having a bad day at work, he would come home, load up the golf cart and go to the course. He would come home in the best mood, so cheerful and seemingly worry free.

I think at some point my mom decided she wanted to learn to play as well, because my dad was always the happiest when he played golf.

There were many times when my dad tried to teach me to play. I didn't take to it right away, because I have always avoided anything that I couldn't be perfect at the first time.

I know now, and I tell my girls, that you have to be really bad at something for awhile in order to be really great at it later. Sometimes they believe me and sometimes they don't. I guess it's all about effort and attitude.

I can remember coming home from high school one horribly dirty windy day. I opened the garage door and there was my dad standing there with his hair all standing straight up, a golf club in his hand and a big smile on his face.

I got out of the car really frustrated and annoyed by the wind and my day over all.

He asked me what was wrong and I told him I was just irritable, my lipstick had dirt in it from the tornado like wind outside and my friends had been mean all day.

He told me, "I'm sorry, but your day is only bad if you let it be. Your attitude is everything."

It's a day in my life that I remember with vivid fondness, because I think it was comments like that, that make me who I am today.

This weekend I spent alot of quality time with my dad on the golf course. He helped me with my swing, my attitude and counceled me on life in general. I am so thankful for him and my mom. It was another great weekend!

Waiting on Summer and Enjoying Valentines

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Christmas Chaos

When our family gets together for holidays and whatever else, we always have a blast. Holidays are a great time to make fun of each other in everyway we can, eat more food than is ever necessary and to get hardly any sleep at all because someone will have to sleep in the special room! Even though we were all crammed into the cabin in Cloudcroft, NM. we managed to get along the entire time and laugh until our sides hurt always. This Christmas was one of the best!

I feel so blessed to have a family like mine.

Noone makes me laugh like my sister Stacy, she is beautiful and forever hilarious!

Jaime is the hottest coffee mug model I have ever seen.

Jaime is in the middle of the dog pile somewhere. Sam is hangin on though!


Autumn, Hannah, Sam, Gabby and Matti

This is all he wanted for Christmas! I don't know why I bothered buying him anything.

Movies and More Movies!

Sledding is harder when there really isn't any snow! Ice and rock make it much more challenging!

Gabby forever the clown.!

Memory Lane

Sunrise in Amboseli Game Park with Mt. Kilimanjaro in the background

Gary and Gabby wear their safari hats so they can be "fully functional"

The Swift Fam on some big rock I can't remember the name of in Tsavo.

Gabby at the swimming pool at Serena Resort

Today I was looking at our family pictures from over the years and I realized that there were so many memories I had forgotten about. I thought if I had forgotten them, then I was certain our girls had too. So I decided I would try to keep up with a blog spot, for a while at least, so that the girls and our friends and family could look back any time they wanted to remember how blessed by God we are and how amazing our lives have been together.

I am not really the type person that will sit down and scrapbook or put photos in an album. I prefer to throw them all in a box in no order what so ever. Jaime on the other hand has been great since the invention of the digital camera to take pictures and organize them on his computer.

So thanks to him I was able to post several pictures of some really great memories with family and friends we created while living in Kenya, East Africa over a ten year period.