Easter

We had a wonderful Easter!  The weather was nice (for April in Idaho).  Most of my family was around, and all of Bryan's (except for Christa).  We did breakfast in the graveyard before church (since we have our own church building now, we don't have to get up at the crack of dawn), and we had a nice big Easter dinner at Bryan's parent's house with all the family.  We even managed to get my sister to snap a family picture.  But of course the picture with my iPhone actually turned out, and the ones on my nice camera have someone looking crazy.

But here we all are! 

And just for fun, I pulled out last year's photo.  I love how much we've all changed in a year.  2013:

And then of course I had to dig up the year before that.  2012:

And the year before that.  2011:

Yep, lots of change in just a few short years.  It's fun to think about how much things will change next year.

Merrry Christmas

MUCH LOVE,

FROM THE BLAKEYS

BRYAN, BESS, CHLOË, AND ELAINA

AND BABY #3, DUE JULY, 2014

The Tree

We managed to avoid the coldest night of the year when we went looking for our Christmas tree.  That was a nice change from years past.  We didn't get this one, but the girls thought it was awfully cute.

After we brought the tree home, the girls helped Bryan get the it ready for the tree stand.

Since I've been morning sick, it was slow going getting the tree decorated, but we did it.  It only took five days.

We've been trying to read a few Bible verses every night for Advent. 

Christmas is almost here.

Bacon Chocolate

A few weeks ago, I was browsing Pinterest, and saw a nice little article with some fun suggestions for stocking stuffers for the man in your life.  Some good ideas.  Some things I've gone before.  Then a link to buy Bacon Chocolate bars.

For 12 bucks a piece.

Noooo thanks.  For half that price, I figured I could make a whole tray of bacon bars.  So I did.

I baked up some bacon, and then cut it into tiny pieces.

Then I spread a layer of chocolate chips on parchment paper on a cookie sheet.

I popped the tray in the warm oven for a few minutes until the chocolate chips were melty, and then I spread it all together, and sprinkled my bacon on top of it.

When it was aaaaalmost cool, I scored it into bars, and then let it finish cooling.

Then I cut up a bunch of aluminum foil, and wrapped up a whole pile of my very own bacon chocolate bars.

All ready for stockings on Christmas Eve!

Thanksgiving

Samuel flew in from Denver.  My parents drove down from Bonners.  Katie and her boyfriend Collin and his two daughter came from Sandpoint.  And then we all cooked and feasted and rested together.

Happy Resurrection Day!

After we got home from church on Sunday, I put a chair on the coffee table, and positioned my camera appropriately on the chair.

While checking the camera settings, I managed to get some great candid shots.

Then I set the camera's timer, and told everyone to look at the camera and smile.  Miraculously, even my one-year-old followed my instructions.

Then I wanted to get a few pictures of the girls. 

Even though they don't have matching dresses, I still think my girls are adorable.

I couldn't get them to both smile nicely towards the camera.

But Chloë got super excited when we brought out the candy.

Then she got grumpy that we weren't done taking pictures yet.

But then she cheered up and got super cute.  This is my favorite picture:

She just looks like such a big girl.

I'm amazed at how much we've changed since last Easter.

So Happy Resurrection Day, everyone!  He is risen, indeed!

Easter Eggs

We dyed Easter eggs on Sunday.  Lots, and lots... and lots of Easter eggs.

Chloë thought it was amazing. This photo is a bit washed out, but here she is proudly showing off her PINK Easter Egg! 

I showed her how to gently lower the eggs into the mugs of dye.

We hard boiled about 4 dozen eggs, and when those were all dyed, we decided to move on to the raw eggs. Why not? So we ended up dying another 4 dozen. And not just ker-plopping them in the dye and letting them sit for a few minutes. Oh no. We had to let our creative juices flow. And flow they did.

We got out the crayons and got creative.

I poked some holes in a few raw eggs and emptied them, and then dyed the shells.

We got out some rubber bands and little hole-punch reinforcement ring stickers, and Bryan came up with this very creative minion. 

And I discovered that the reinforment rings make a really cute owl!

I'm pretty sure that Laura dyed about half of the eggs.
I used masking tape to tape off most of the egg in segments so I could make a rainbow egg.  I think I spent about a half an hour on this thing.

I slowly lowered some eggs into the dye to make ombre eggs!

It was a lot of colorful fun.

Just in case you were wondering, I added the blown eggs to my others, and put them on my mantle for a little Easter cheer.