What a week!

Between Soccer, Boy Scouts, Softball, and Gymnastics I have not had a lot of free time to blog. So I am playing catch up now.
We had a scare at the beginning of the week when I got a phone call late at night from my sister-in-law. She started the sentence with "don't freak out" (translation- without a doubt, you are about to freak out). There was an accident while my father was cleaning his gun and he shot himself in the thigh! He was very lucky it went straight through (they didn't have to go in and remove the bullet), also it didn't hit anything but muscle. They patched him up in the ER and sent him home the same night. He is doing great with it, he even returned to work the next day...he was to stubborn to miss.

We went to the zoo with friends. Victoria had went with my father to WV to visit family and Rodney had to work, so, it was just Maddie, Chandler, and I. Besides the fact that Maddie got a blister and I had to carry her half way through we had a great time. Of course I am going to post tons of photos for you :).

Victoria made the A/B honor roll. She is so smart. :)

Maddie has been struggling at school for quite some time not, we had her tested for learning disabilities through her school and they didn't find anything, so, Monday she has an appt with her doctor to have her tested privately. Keep her in your prayers.

Poor Chandler had to carry my backpack since I had to carry Maddie. It wouldn't be so bad, but the book bag is a girls bag.

Chandler is such a big helper, he followed my friend's daughter Elise around the whole time maker sure she didn't get hurt.

Easter Weekend........

We had a busy, busy Easter weekend. Friday started with my nephews birthday at Chuck E Cheese. Saturday, Victoria and Chandler were at a sleep over and we took that opportunity to take Maddie out for the day. It's so hard with three kids to give them the one on one time they deserve. We took her to the see the Easter bunny and then shopping at the mall. Of course Saturday night was filled with cooking and preparing for Easter. Easter, after church my family came over to enjoy dinner with us, and then we had an Easter egg hunt. I had gone to Target and bought a kit that had over 45 candy filled eggs with it. After about twenty minutes of looking we finally started giving the kids hints of where the eggs could be. Maddie was excited to find the golden egg especially since my dad had slipped five bucks into it. Sunday was a day were I felt extremely blessed to be surrounded by lots of family who I love so deeply.. I also felt sad that I couldn't share my joy with the family and friends who were far away. Please know that I was missing you on Sunday and that you were in my thoughts.

I was up until three in the morning making basket and hiding eggs in the yard!!

A few photo's of my children and my wonderful nieces and nephew, are they so cute!

I make a new Easter cake every year. This one is a coconut key lime cake.

I have more uploaded photos on my flickr account.

Coloring Easter Eggs.......

Here are the rest of the photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/karnesfamily/?saved=1

Spring Break.....

Thursday was the last day of school before spring break. The school put on a "Fun Day" which I went and volunteered at. There were five inflatable bouncers, a snow cone machine, a DJ, and more.

They had a blast on this inflatable

Smile Maddie

Chandler's teacher's

Maddie and her best friend Rachel

Chandler at the bottom


Maddie coming down

Leaving comments.....

A friend made me aware of the fact that she couldn't leave a comment without an account. I went on this morning and changed the settings so anyone could leave a comment if they wanted. Sorry bout that.

Chandler is a daddy...of 13!!!

Chandler's class has been incubating quail eggs for a couple of weeks now and last Thursday they hatched!!! When he got in the car he exclaimed "I'm a Daddy"!!! It was really neat to watch their progress. After the Easter holiday we are going to take a field trip out to his teachers farm and release them. Here is the link from his class website of the progression of these cute quails....
http://lincolncharter.teamcfa.org/teachers/helen_rutledge/gallery/quail_egg_progress

April Fools....

For April Fools I made the kids "grilled cheese sandwiches" The kids were pleasantly surprised. :)





INGREDIENTS:
Pound cake (we used Entenmann's brand)
1 cup buttercream or white frosting (canned is just fine)
Yellow and red food coloring

Cut the pound cake into bread-like slices and toast them in a toaster oven just until they turn golden brown. Once they've cooled for a few minutes, stack two slices for each sandwich and cut the stack in half diagonally (slicing the sandwich before you fill it makes for fewer crumbs).

Now tint the frosting by stirring in a few drops of yellow and red food coloring (more yellow than red) to get a shade of orange that resembles American cheese.

Carefully spread frosting between the slices of each half sandwich. If you mound the frosting on one slice, then top it with the other and gently press down, the frosting will ooze out a bit and look all the more like melted cheese. Makes one sandwich.

Quick trip......

My niece Mackenzie whom I had never met (and she is now 13) was going to be at my sister-in-laws house so we decided to take a quick trip to Charleston. We had a really great time. Victoria and Mackenzie were like peas in a pod, you would have thought they were attached at the hip. We are hoping to make it back down this coming weekend and spend Easter with them. Here are a couple of pictures from this last trip......










To see the entire album from this trip go here.....
http://www.flickr.com/photos/karnesfamily/3419394589/

Technical difficulties....

My PC bit the dust. A dear friend who works on computers is repairing it for me. I have a ton of updating to do, so I hope to have it back by Friday!