Easter 2011...

We had a fabulous Easter this year. I love Easter and spring time. I love what Easter means and represents. I always think of the empty tomb and that makes me think of Jerusalem, and I have nothing but great memories and feelings about the Holy Land and the spirit I felt there. Anyway, even though Easter is a little more commercialized than I would like it to be, we still enjoy ourselves with our family and those we love. And I always feel the spirit.

I try and keep the Easter baskets low key and simple. I got the kids their swimsuits, a book or two and some candy.

Of course, Taylor dug right into the candy and enjoyed every second of it! :)

After church we headed up to my dads house for an afternoon with family and delicious food! Allen & Kelli and their *growing* family came up for the weekend and of course, the kids had so much fun with their cousins.

These next few shots are for grandma, who got the kids all matching outfits. They looked so cute all matching at church! :)

Here is a very typical Taylor face. :)

Cute Cassidy and her 80's side ponytail! :) Love it!

Tucker totally posed on this rock all on his own.

And Keyton, who wanted nothing to do with pictures, joined him. :)

Cute Carter! A little mini-man.

Our family picture... (sorry, our Easter church clothes came off right after church!) :)

Me and my baby girl!

Taylor and daddy.

Then some Easter egg hunts. It was fierce. But we had a few and the kids got their fill.

Dying eggs...

Then my favorite part of the day, dinner! I swear, my dad is going to be the chef up in Heaven! This is my Heaven on Earth! :) Ham, ribs, and salmon. To. die. for. We are never disappointed when my dad cooks for us, which luckily for us, is quite often!

I made personalized cupcakes for everyone for dessert.

We then just kicked back and relaxed all afternoon. It was a perfect day!

The next night before Allen & Kelli left to go home, just us adults went out to the new Brazilian restaurant in Coeur d'Alene. We love the Brazilian restaurants and this one did not disappoint! :) It was more fun just being out with my siblings and dad without kids. We had a great time together! Thanks Dad!

And thanks Jani & Nathan for watching all FOUR of our kids! :)

Happy Easter!

Here's a more meaningful Easter thought. I loved this! We are so blessed!

Happy Easter everyone!

How Great Thou Art...

I love this hymn and obviously and I thought that this rendition was so beautiful and meaningful with Easter coming up. I love the way Carrie Underwood sings it with so much feeling. I thought that this was the perfect time to share. :)

Happy Easter everyone! Enjoy!

tucker pyper photography...

I love looking at my camera and finding tuckers pictures. Mostly because they show some great shots of what our days are truly like, and moments between my kids that I wasn't a part of.

And, of course, the shots of the things that are truly important to Tucker.

Easter Eggs with Grandma...

Grandma came into town to visit and, among other things, we dyed some Easter eggs.

This little boy was, of course, VERY into all the action and wanted to dye all the eggs himself.

i love this little girl!

One of her favorite things to do is to play with her big brother. She is such a fun playful little girl!

The babies weren't sure what to think of the whole egg dyeing thing at first. :)

Here is Taylor dipping her animal cracker in the dye! :) And no, we did not let her eat it after that! :)

Carter wasn't so sure about it at first, either.

He decided he better check the dye with his fingers. Ya know, just to make sure. :)

Yup, looks good! :)

And grandma and her grandbabies with their finished works of art! :) Not too shabby for 2 babies and a pre-schooler! :)

We always love it when grandma comes to town and this visit was no different!

A little bit of grandma is good for the soul!

Thanks for everything, Grandma, we love you!

conference...

My favorite weekends of the year happen in April & October; General Conference! We went up to my dads house to watch it and eat delicious food. We were fed both physically and spiritually! :) It was perfect!

Taylor had chocolate and was happy for the rest of the day!

We had fun putting Taylors bottle in Jon's mouth while he was sleeping! he he, we are so sneaky!

And Taylor getting comfy with Kathryn! :) Love this girl!

A day in the life...

With the weather so crappy lately, here's a little glimpse as to what we've been up to:

These next three photos were by Tucker.

Here is what our basement looks like most of the time. Disaster zone!

family portraits by Tucker...

And we wonder where our kids get their craziness from!

You obviously don't want to let a Pyper get a hold of your expensive technical device. You saw what I did to our net book. Now here is Taylor eating her taco soup off of a cell phone. (an old cell phone that is now a toy phone, but still...)

Here's Tuckers crazy face...

And speaking of my cute boy, let me just brag a minute or two. This little boy is so smart! He came to me the other day and told me that he had written this sentence:

"The rocket blasted off"

He is totally reading three and four letter words and writing words all the time! I am one proud mama!

We've been going to Mobius a lot. I loved this picture of Taylor and her whale spout! :)

This little one loves to play in the drawers in the kitchen while she is at my feet while I'm trying to cook ALL THE TIME!

Farm animal bowling with Tuckers backugan. It's always really exciting around here!

Taylor loves to play in Tuckers room. This is a pretty typical face for this little drama queen!

Making cookies has been a big hit these days. Yes Tucker is indeed licking THREE utensils covered in cookie batter.

This little girl was just happy to have some chocolate chips. :)

If you notice, she has quite a few bruises on her head and face, its because this little girl is finally standing on her own and is falling and bumping her head all the time! I'm hoping she starts walking soon!

Anyway, the moral of our story here is this:

please, please, PLEASE hurry and get here summer, we need to get out of this house!

The Agurkis family comes to town...

The Agurkis family came into town a few weekends ago and, as usual, we had a fantastic time together. We are so lucky to have such great friends. Taylor was happy to have a play mate more her age. The got into some glitter Christmas tree ball decorations I had; and had a ball (ha!) playing with them.

{oh by the way, the next day Taylor was pooping glitter! Like a true princess should!} :)

The reason they came was for Doug's birthday. It was no Dirty thirty, but thirty-two aint so bad either. :) We made him a delicious sea food dinner and gave him a tub of jelly beans (he loves them!) and he seemed content! :)

We went to play at river front park one day and had to take a ride on the gondola.

Girls in one car...

Boys in the other...

The beautiful (green?) falls... :)

This is a pretty common face for Taylor right now. She is the funniest little girl I have ever met! She has so much personality at this young age. Makes me nervous for what's to come!

Next up on the docket, was to feed the ducks.

No, Jacob you can't go into the water!

No, Taylor you can't eat the bread, it's for the ducks!

{They hadn't quite grasped the concept of feeding ducks yet!} :)

{Beautiful Spokane!}

Had to get a family picture on the garbage goat! :) HA!

This is why we love our Agurkis family!

Tucker takes after his dad in so many ways. He saw this rock wall as we were passing under the underpass and had to climb it. He got most of the way up before Ben went up to help him. Such boys!

And of course, the big red wagon! :) Taylors first ride down, I believe!

And Jacob's as well! I love that cute little smile! :)

No trip downtown is complete without riding the carousel. Well, I don't ride it. I can't ride it! Just looking at the thing go around and around makes me queasy. But I'm just he photographer anyway! :)

Finally the big dinner was here. The feast was grand. The company was delightful and the satisfaction was complete! :) (yes, we had to bring in some of our patio chairs from the back porch- our families are growing!) :)

And Tuckers favorite moment of the weekend. The ice-cream cake. OK, it was mine too! :) Thanks for having a birthday Doug, so I could have an excuse to consume the deliciousness that is the DQ ice-cream cake! :)

OH, and congrats on becoming a MASTER! We are so proud of you. It's about freakin' time! :) And thanks for being Ben's best friend! We love you!