Tulip Festival

We went to the Tulip Festival this weekend. It was beautiful. It was also C-O-L-D. Brrrr!!! Which on one hand was great because there weren't scads of people there. (I don't like crowds). But on the other hand...it was cold. I didn't take as many photos as I had planned for two reasons. First, I was cold. (Have I mentioned that, yet?) And second, although I checked the battery on my camera the night before, I brought my manual in the car and was reading about some more advanced techniqes and was practicing as we were driving. (It's about an hour drive to the tulip fields). At one point I noticed that I used up 1/2 of my battery (and neglected to pack my spare)! So I had to be a bit conservative...That's okay.

First, here are some of my favorite photos of each of the kids....

Matthew

Andrew

Kaitlin

Me and my 3 little Loves...

The boys had a great time RUNNING down the rows of tulips.

Back and forth.

I think Andrew must have fallen around 5 times. Do you see him back there, laying on his tummy? He'd lay there like that until I arrived on the scene. Not crying or anything, just silent.

Maybe he kept falling because he runs like this....Bless his heart.....

After he fell, he'd literally lay there, face down in the dirt. Here's the proof....

Have I mentioned that Andrew is the master of pitiful expressions? He's got me exactly where he wants me. He truly has one of the sweetest, most compassionate hearts you could encouter, but he knows how to use these little faces to his advantage.

And looking at this next photo, would you believe he was diagnosed the day before (friday) with double ear infections? That's my Andrew. He's very prone to ear infections (he has tubes), but is always so amiable about it.

Dan took some sweet photos of me with Kaitlin.

Uh-oh! Still not steady on her feet. Good thing she's washable...

Daddy gives the best piggy back rides....

I love this...Kaitlin looks so bitty next to Dan. (Do you see why we have tall kids? Dan is just shy of 6'3"--I'm 5'6").

In addition to the Tulips there's a little craft area, and little play area and food. The boys were anxious to get to the play area. They remembered it from last year. It was fun this year as they went on their first pony ride!

Matthew was so cute while riding his pony. He was really excited, and was saying, "My horse is going fast!!"

I had my aperature set too low, so Andrew is blurry...still learning...

Kaitlin had a LOT to say about the horses. (She LOVES animals)....

The boys were brave enough this year to go on a jumpy-thingy (sorry, don't know what it's called).

I just love Andrew's expressions. He's such a kick.

Here's one so you can see what the "thingy" is like....(It has 5 different arms so multiple kids can jump at the same time).

We were all freezing by this point and so we went and got lunch. They have the yummiest food there...Some really good chicken tacos, and a local place that makes sausages and shoe string french fries...mmmmmm. We took it back to the van, turned the heat on high and unthawed! :)

It was a great time though and something I'll continue to look forward to doing each year.

On a side note, I might not be blogging much this next week. I'm needing to get caught up on some things around here (I'm tackeling my desk area) and I'm in planning mode for this summer. (Activities for the kids, etc.) Not to mention I'm implementing a new idea that I got from a friend to help with limiting the wii, Leapster, tv...electronics in general. I'm detoxing the boys so things might get ugly around here. :) That might be worthy of a blog post. Dan is going to try to help me to go multi-media with the blog and get a video up of the Bug walking and also something VERY exciting that Matthew did this last weekend. BIG, BIG news here. But I don't want to spoil it. It's so much more impressive to watch.

So, stay tuned. :) And Have a great week!