The Bradshaw Crew

We had a pretty awesome Easter this year. Yesterday we got to spend time with Bo’s family, today we went to an awesome church service and heard a great message then got to spend time with my family this afternoon. I didn’t take pictures at church (though i did SERIOUSLY consider it because I would love to have the visual memory, yes I am a dork but at least I came to the conclusion that it would be distracting and inappropriate and didn’t do it) but I did get pictures of the rest of the day.

Chloe painting, she was VERY focused and refused to even acknowledge there was life going on outside of her coloring page. (notice she is painting with her left hand)

Chloe busting into her easter basket

Then Chloe “yard saled” the basket which apparently means tipping it over and dumping everything out onto the floor to go through and see what she got.

Dad decided to take over her masterpiece and finish it while she was going candy crazy in her easter basket.

Mom & Dad

This is Trina & Joe’s dog “Precious.” She’s about 7 1/2 years old and weighs MAYBE 4 lbs… she’s hysterical, she’s about the size of a football and often wears clothes.

Uncle Bo got tired.

All the family… Chloe was very excited about the flash for the camera since we had been waiting so long for the picture to go since I set the time to 10 so I had time to run into the picture. We cracked a few jokes, goosed each other and had some fun waiting for the flash!

This is Bos & my 2nd Easter together. We missed Easter in 2007 because I was out of the country. But we picked up our tradition right where we left off of dying easter eggs. We don’t have kids but we like to have fun so we do it ourselves anyway!

preparing the stuff

lining up the cups in rainbow order. guess who did that? Nope! It was me not Bo!

Us dying, eggs that is.

I was proud of myself for a couple of the ones I made. Bo tried to say they were “OUR” eggs… Uh.. NO…. I specifically let that egg sit in the purple dye for 30 min to make it pretty, it was my creation! HE made the cool 2 colored ones, I didn’t have the patience for that sort of creativity.

Bo’s cousin told me a story today about telling her young son what eggs were. I said “Chicken POOP!” and she said “yeah, pretty much, he’ll never eat eggs again.” hahaha.

At least they LOOK pretty all rainbow colored!

See… so proud!

Bows was having nothing to do with it, she was guarding the stairs with her life! She OWNS that staircase!

Awwww… so cute.

After we were done dying eggs at our house, we picked up Bo’s friend Blake for the day… He’s not cranky, he’s just not a fan of the camera, probably even LESS of a fan that I’m posting his picture on the internet for the whole world to see. But it’s ok Blake, I think you are the only one that even reads our blog anyway! :)

We picked up Blake and headed over to Bo’s grandma & grandpa’s for Easter with his family. Here’s grandma & grandpa and some of the rest of the family to follow.

Mom & niece Violet

Uncle Bo & Violet trying to give the “deuce” sign… not so good Uncle Bo.

Cousins Charitie & Jessica cookin it up in the kitchen!

Uncle Bo & Violet again

Auntie Kari & Violet

Violet with auntie Kari’s glasses… she was grabbing for them on my face so I decided to share.

All the kids at the “kids table” …. It’s all fun and games UNTIL…. someone throws up.

Aunt Lori & her fiancee Greg with Violet

Bo & mom

Bobby, Sarah & who? Oh yes, violet again… :)

Cousin Brandon & his shirt.

We had fun visiting and eating with the family then headed home. Here I am sitting on my computer posting pictures for all to see and the boys are…. well, you can see below.

We celebrated Good Friday watching “The Passion of the Christ” with some co-workers of Bo’s which was a lot of sad fun and tomorrow we’ll of course be at church! I can’t wait to hear the Easter message this year, our pastor is usually pretty creative with it. After church we’ll head to my sisters house to celebrate Easter again with my family! We hope your Easter is as blessed as ours has been! Family, food, fellowship, fun and of course the only reason for it all, Jesus!

Mom & dad and Bo and I took Chloe to the park/lake to play and feed the ducks. We had fun as you can tell by the pictures below.

Sporting her super cute shades.

Her even cooler flip up shades.

Put the toys down… it’s time to get serious feeding ducks.

Nana & Poppi

Uncle Bo & Chloe

She threw in a whole bag of dressing and about half a loaf of bread then wanted even more!

Watching the kids play

The lake

Then we headed to the park to play on the toys

Poppi pushing her higher and higher on the swings

Uncle Bo chasing her EVERYWHERE to tire her out

Uncle Bo & Chloe were overtaking the toys… kids were getting scared of the craziness and jumping from the sides!! Poppi to the rescue!

Girls just want to have fun

Making sure it’s all safe for Chloe to play on…….. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight

Checking the slide for safety too nana?? mmmmm hmmmm

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!

I have no comment. I am speechless. Feel free to post your own comment of this picture at the link below.

Yet again… speechless. My family amazes me often.

She actually did it the right way… right age, right size, sitting the right way…

shrontosaurus??

Bo trying to see if he could fly from the swing. Yes he DID hurt himself attempting this stunt.

Uncle Bo & Auntie Kari

More swingin

It’s all fun and games UNTIL………

SOMEONE PEES ON THE SLIDE. time to go home!!

Here are the pictures of my birthday this past week.

Celebration #1 was with Bo’s & my best friends who we got to go to one of our favorite restaurants with. How cute are they!?

We went to Jasmines Mongolian grill. If you’ve never been to a mongolian grill, go, it’s so good! It’s a buffet line, you select the meat you want then add noodles, tons of veggies and sauces then take it to the grill where they cook it right in front of you.

Cooking on the grill

Bo & I. This would be profile worthy if it was in focus. :(

Anna got me a birthday cake on our way back to our house to watch a comdey dvd (Brad Stein, he’s realy funny). This cake was SOOOOOOOOOO good, i had 1 piece every single day for 6 days. Dark chocolate with chocolate fudge icing. Too bad we didn’t have any milk.

Celebration #2. This is what I found at my desk when I arrived at work Tuesday morning, I was pretty surprised. (Thanks K!) Later that day there were flowers delivered to my desk as well from my wonderful hubby. The picture with those was out of focus.

My co workers all signed a card for me and 1 of them even hand made me a really cool crown. I promised her I’d wear it at least long enough to get a picture with it.

Celebration #3 was a “surprise” dinner with my parents & Chloe at Taco Time. I was VERY surprised even though my dad had called me that morning and sang me all sorts of birthday songs on my voicemail then ended it with “See you tonight!!!” hahaha :) (Mom had called and sung to me on my voicemail as well)

Chloe even colored me a picture that’s hanging on the fridge for my birthday!

Woo Hoo auntie Kari got healthy snacks for her birthday!!

Our birthday portrait at Taco Time, I stick with the story that I’m a tourist wherever I go, I don’t care if it’s a place that I frequent, I’ve got to get my pictures!

I don’t think I’ll ever get the 1-armed self photo down, no matter how many times I do it over and over and over again, I cut off our heads EVERY time. I even point the camera up and STILL cut off our heads somehow, I think my camera has eyes of it’s own.

My new scrapbooking/photography goal is to start getting better candid shots. Seeing them actively laughing is hysterical and so much better than pasted on “photo shoot” smiles.

You’ve seen this move before (if you haven’t scroll down about 2 blogs and you will) … “Where’s Chloe!?!?!?!”

Swingin! Yep, we’re a horrible aunt and uncle, we play in the parking lot but they crashed into all sorts of stuff trying to swing in circles inside the restaurant.

Flingin! Now you see where we get it, Nana plays in the parking lot too! Chloe wanted to go “flingin” so they flung her all the way to the truck. Again, loving the candid photos!

My birthday was a blast, hopefully it was a preview of how this year is going to be because I had a wonderful time and was so blessed by my friends and family! Thanks for all you did guys!

Although you can barely even tell she’s pregnant (in real life, in this picture she actually DOES look pregnant), Bo’s sister Kati is about to have her first child, Aiden. Here are a few pictures from the baby shower last weekend.

She decorated this cake herself! She frosted it on her own, drew the letters and designs, did the ribbons and binkies, it was pretty amazing. I was asking where she bought it because it was so cute but she actually decorated it all on her own! She must have got an A+ in cake decorating class!

Here are the most of the presents and her about to dive into them all.

Most everyone who came

She had this cute idea of having everyone make onesies and/or bibs for baby… There were some really creative and cute designs there but i went plain and basic because I am creativally challenged…

Then I thought uncle bo might want to be included too…

My friend Ellen and I

Once again, Katie (and Dan) decorated the nursery. She painted the letters on the door herself and stamped the walls inside. It’s really cute and they are almost all done!

Dan is going to build a changing table in the nook under the window but they have pretty much everything they need already and it looks really cute.

Dan was at home, I accidentally woke him from napping with his nephew going in to take pictures of the nursery. I just had to get a picture of this little guy with his butt sticking out passed out cold on uncle Dan, it was too cute!

Our family celebrates St Patricks day by way of green flowers, green food, green decorations, cards and fun, yeah, we’re dorks :) Here are some of our pictures of this year!Above is the table mom set that we filled up with corned beef & cabbage with potatoes, carrots & onions as well as green salad and bread. MMMMMMMMMM it was so good, I ate corned beef for 3 days!

Mom & Chloe

Uncle Bo and Chloe playing “Where’s Chloe??” which chloe thinks is hysterical. Bo throws her over his shoulder then looks around in circles exclaiming “Where’s Chloe!?!?!” as if he can’t see her and she thinks it’s hysterical as she yells “I’m HERE unco bo!!” and he spins around to hear her voice but not see her because she’s still over his shoulder…. this goes on for quite a while.

Not worthy of a new profile pic :) At least we’re both wearing green!!

Mom and dad and Chloe sneaking in the flowers….

Chloe passed out pretty early, I think she was asleep by 8pm RIGHT smack in the middle of nana & poppi’s bed.. can you say spoiled!?!?

We took Bowser to the groomer today for our first time (she’s done it before but we’ve never taken her). She’s got such long fur she was starting to get mats even though we do brush her and we’ve never even see the cute collar she wears, we can just hear her jingle wherever she’s at. I was scared to take her in for her first time, what if they shaved her bald? What if they clipped her nails too short? Were they even going to clip her nails? What if they cut her skin? What if they made her bleed? What if the stress was too much for her? What if they were rough with her? I had all sorts of things going through my mind about her going in so while Bo had offered to take her himself, I told him for my own peace of mind, I wanted to go check the place out and meet the groomer. She was a really nice gal and made me feel better about leaving her there. She did great in the car on the way there, she sat on Bo’s lap the entire time and watched out the window. She didn’t cry at all, she was more of a trooper than I was!

We THOUGHT she was getting a Lion Cut … I had asked the groomer to trim around her neck/collar area because her fur was REALLY long and getting mats I had to cut out and go ahead and trim the rest of her down a bit including her tail… But when we took her out of the box at the groomer to check her out she was NAKED!!! hahahaha.. she looks hysterical, we love it! She has legs! And a neck! And a tail! We’ve never seen that before!

(this is a picture from the internet, I have NO idea who the girl is in it, she is not my friend, just a picture relating to the story I’m sharing) I was out taking my walk today which is when I do my praying. I was praying for all the requests on my list and kept hearing from God about something that made no sense to me. He kept telling me a friends name and about boxing. It made NO sense to me at all. I love this friend, I know her well and she is NOT a boxer, sure, she has tried it in the past but she doesn’t box, she doesn’t take classes to learn how to box, to get in shape by boxing, there is absolutely NOTHING in her life relating to boxing in any sort of way. I put the prompting out of my mind and continued to pray for others. God interrupted every prayer I prayed with her name and boxing over and over. So I said “Ok God, I have ABSOLUTELY no idea what you want me to pray about but I’ll pray for my friend and boxing.” I prayed about her boxing, about her getting punched, about her boxing in the past and in the future, I prayed about people who would or could box with her, I prayed for her health, the health of her family members, pretty much everything I could think of to pray about for her personally as well as boxing and any relation it could possibly have on her life. It made absolutely NO sense at all in any way I could concieve.

Until this afternoon, I received a message from her that said “Well, it’s all done….I boxed” I said “what!?!?! what are you talking about!!?!?!?” having known NOTHING about her boxing. She told me she had to box today because of a situation that arose and that God spoke to her today through her boxing. I said “ohhhhhhhhhhh, now it all makes sense.” She said “what are you talking about” and I told her the story of how I had been praying for her boxing today all morning even though it made no sense to me, I had no idea what it was about and couldn’t comprehend what it was I was praying for her about, but I heard God, he put her on my heart, he put her boxing on my heart and I prayed for it while she was out boxing.

Again, I don’t believe in coincidences, I believe in God who orchestrates EVERYTHING and every once in a while, when we’re willing to shut up and listen to Him and to follow His promptings, we get a glimpse of His power and grace.

My friend and I both felt amazing, we felt like we had been used by God in his plan, we were obedient to him (her with boxing, me with praying) and both were blessed to see and feel His presence in our lives. We are both grateful and in awe of how God can use us if we obey.

(Just to be honest, this story was not actually about boxing, it was about something completly different but to protect her identity I used a metaphor which I think fit perfectly.)

The before picture

When Bo and I got Bowser, she was nicely groomed. She had been trimmed “Lion Cut” style which means basically that her trunk was shaved short. She still had long fur on her head, legs & tail and the rest of her was buzz cut, it was adorable, soft, brushable, manageable and she didn’t shed much. It’s been 2 1/2 months and she’s gone back to full fuzzball persian status. We’ve wanted to get her groomed again for a while but all the places we’ve contacted charge WAY too much and we can’t afford it. So I decided we’d try it ourselves. I’m not sure why Bo didn’t stop me at just having the thought of it, he didn’t really agree and said he’d rather take her in to get her groomed but we just can’t afford it and it can’t be that hard to shave a cat right? RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT…. my bad. Here she is on the way to her destiny….(bo has a thing about putting her in plastic bags and swinging her around..)
We spent an hour in the garage with clippers a friend let me borrow (thanks K!) and managed to get a strip shaved down the middle of her back. That was all. We were done. So our poor kitty now has a nice skunk like stripe down her back of short hair and the rest is just fuzzy busting at the seams. It’s a really poor picture showing her pretty little short fuzzy stripe but it was the best i could get at the time. I’ll get better pictures next weekend after we take her into a salon to get her groomed. Yup, we caved, but we also found a place that said they’d do it for less than 50% of the price of all the other local places, they are insured, they’ve had the same cat groomer for 8 years now so we’re praying for the best.

And just for fun, here’s the snow that was falling just about 15 minutes ago. It’s sunny and bright outside now but we had snow for a few minutes.