boiling crawfish for easter?

Im sure your all wondering the same thing i was 10 years ago..seriously who boils crawfish for easter. well let me tell you, pretty much everyone in the south. i have grown to LOVE and cherish this pastime that people have been doing for decades. i mostly wanted to publish this post for my good friend Jane johnson who is a westerner by birth but is now a proud alabamian. she has never experienced the true "crawfish boil" so im going to layout step by step for her what you would need to have a successful boil.
1st- you need about 2 sacks of LIVE crawfish. you bring this to your home and poor them in a bucket or a cooler full of water and salt. this starts the purging process(ya know, to get out all of the poo).
2nd you need a bunch of rednecks(i say that in a very loving way, see my husband on the right?) standing arond a pickup truck drinking beer, smoking ciggs, and shootin the s@*t as i like to call it. of course donnie isnt involved in that :)

3rd you need lots of good family and friendly conversation. this picture below is donnies grandma and grandpa (nanny and papa). they are the greatest, i love hearing his grandpas old stories over and over again.

4th after boiling the crafish for about 10 min. then letting them soak in the water for about 20 with the seasonings, potatoes,corn on the cob,sausage,onions,garlic,and mushrooms you proceed to dump it on a big picnic table where everyone stands around and eats it together.

5th this is me in heaven. your mouth starts burning and your nose starts running from the spices. of course its messy and somewhat barbaric but boy is it worth it! i love it. if you are ever in the deep south you really need to experiance one.

just a little tidbit. your supposed to peel them kind of like a shrimp, then you suck the heads(thats where all of the juices are). donnie does that, i dont.

church easter party

The branch easter party was alot of fun this year. we met at about 10am for brunch. I made 3 different kinds of muffins and brought milk and juice, and there was also a bunch of fruit! this kids got to make a cute bunny craft while some adult hid the eggs. it was nice because they did a little hunt for the babies first so they wouldnt get trampled by the big kids. sophie loved it, and it was nice to have my cute babysitte amy help her! the girls had alot of fun, although taylor is starting to think she is to cool for this type of thing which makes me want to cry. i think she saw how much fun the other kids were having and decided to participate. she is allo about "coolness" these days. there was a great turnout, which i loved because you never know with our parties if anyone is gonna show up ha ha!

its really happening!

First of all HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my hubby donnie!! love you tons cant believe your 34! ok so were so excited because were going to get our stuff in less than 2 months, than im off to seattle for the summer! i cant even tell you how thrilled i am to see my friends and family in arizona and washington. for now were trying to find a house and its taking forever! wish us luck! only a month and a half left of school and its already getting sooooo busy. it seems like there is something going on every week. easter parties,field trips, field days, and so on. oon another note im quitting my job officially tomorrow. its bitter sweet. i dont feel like i have time to work with all of the stuff going on, but i like being able to get out of the house and make some money. oh well, the main thing is finding people to watch the girls, thats really getting old :)

Skylar is 6!!

Today is skylars 6th birthday! i cant believe it time really does fly by. she is a wonderful addition to our family and we wouldnt be the same without her! i wish i had pictures of her as a baby on this computer but once again all of my old pics are in storage in arizona. so i put up a few of my favorites of her!

this was her very first haircut by aunt angela. i saved the hair, i know thats wierd.

she is such a fun sweet little girl. she is very helpful around the house and latley has been asking to do the dishes.she loves playing with her sisters, they are her best friends. skylar always volunteers to say the prayers, and to help out with sophie. she loves school and is doing very well there! we love her so much and are so proud of her!

mardi gras holiday

i really never thought i would be celebrating mardi gras as a holiday but when you live in the south its pretty much a given. Over the last 10 years i have been to many mardi gras parades and the girls have gotten a million beads and crap (excuse my launguage) that we will never use, so this year we decided to go somewhere fun. donnie and i both asked for time off and the girls had monday and fat tuesday off. we really wanted to go to destin fl and lay on the beach so i started looking for hotels. our good friends have a beach house here in orange beach and she talked me in to staying here and staying with them for a few days. it was actually the original plan so we decided just to do it. the beach is all the same anywhere down here right? we packed up a bunch of food and headed over(its only about 10 min from the house). we had soooo much fun. the kids swam and swam and swam some more. we really wish the weather was better but what can you do.

sophie LOVED it! i got her some floaties and pretty much didnt have to get in with her the whole time. she just floated around. of course there was a bunch of snowbirds around glaring at us, but we just ignored them.

on the second night we played put put. it was fun other than chasing sophie around the whole time. skylar ended up getting sick and throwing up. she had been complaing that she had a really bad side ache. turns out she had a bad UTI which we got her on antibiotics when we got home.

here is all of the kids, dakota,taylor,baylee, and sky!

dakota tripped over the hump ha ha

here is all of us at the first whole. it was really cold that night and once the sun went down we about froze!

i got the kids kites so one of the afternoons we went out to the beach and flew them for awhile. it was actually really fun and relaxing. best 4 dollars i have spent in awhile:)

the first night we were there we stayed up way to late and played a bunch of games, ate seafood junk food and laughed. we played clue with the kids, the "what if" game (very funny) and family fued. my dad got us who wants to be a millionare, family fued and deal or no deal for the dvd player for christmas. we had a blast playing that one. i think donnie and i beat holly and jake twice in a row. such a fun time and so greatful to be able to spend it with friends! thanks to the richards for being great hosts!!

visit from mom

we had such a fun time when my mom came down to visit! of course it always goes by way too fast and its so hard to see her go, but it makes it ok knowing that i get to go to seattle for the summer! my girls love her so much, she really is the best grandma ever!

we went down to the beach to walk around and play in the sand. it was beautiful to watch the sun go down. the girls had a blast chasing each other.

This is us going to the justin beiber movie. we had soooo much fun and we LOVED it!!

we decided that on the girls half day we wanted to take them to the zoo. we had alot of fun and the weather was perfect. i love this tiny little zoo.