A New Niece To Love

Lauren "Elyse" Carey

Born to Cliff and April Carey

Big Brother Peter

March 27, 2009

7 lbs. 13 oz. 20 1/4"

We celebrated Elyse with a shower for her and her mommy on April 26th.

She is such a sweet...and tiny little thing!!


Welcome to the family Elyse!!

Batter Up!

Ethan just finished his second year of t-ball. I always love t-ball! No practice, just one night a week, and the kids always have a ball! ;) There is nothing like seeing 8 little kids all run towards one little ball.

Ethan was on Clovis Christian Schools Navy team again this year, and did very well!

His favorite part about t-ball...sliding into home. Pretty impressive!

Monster Jam - Boys Night Out

The boys have always wanted to see the Monster Trucks, so we decided to take them with some of their friends. We went out to Red Robin, and then headed to the fairgrounds for some loud fun! The boys invited the Hall boys, Christian and Cayden, and Christian F., and Ethan's friend Shaun from next door.

Luckily it was general admission, and we got front row seats. The boys had a great time watching the trucks, waving their checkered flags, eating tons of candy, and dancing!

Zoo Day with the Littles!

I have been trying to do some special things for just the "littles". They are so good about going to all of the older boys events, and with the busyness of their schedules, I sometimes forget to do the little kid things for them. :)

We had a fun day, just the 3 of us. I had NEVER gone to the bird show. It was great! The boys enjoyed it too!

Easter 2009

In the Briner family, every family gets to host a holiday. Mine is Easter. This Easter was great! We had all 19 of us! All of the family joined us at RVC for church. It was great to have them all there. Everyone then joined us at our house for dinner and the annual egg hunt. This year it was fun to see all of the boys hunt, and even more fun that we had 2 baby girls this time! We always try for a group kids photo...as you can tell...it's becoming more challenging. ;)

Hunting for Easter Baskets

Every year since the older boys were little, we have come up with a fun way for them to find their Easter Baskets. This year, for Ethan and Dawson, the Easter bunny tied string on their beds, and they had to follow the string all over the house to find their baskets. For Colton and Zac, the bunny was a little more tricky. They had to follow riddles that the Easter bunny left to find theirs! Such a fun time!

Goodness, Gracious, Cake Balls of Fire!

For Easter, I saw this really cute idea on http://bakerella.blogspot.com. It looked a little intimidating, but I thought I would try it!

It's pretty simple, bake a 9 x 13 cake, let cool completely, then crumble in a bowl. Add a little less than a can of frosting, and muck together. Form into balls, and then dip a sucker stick into melted chocolate, and cool. After firm, dip into melted chocolate. There are a lot of different varieties on how to decorate. Very fun project,...but a little time consuming. I doubled the recipe, and it was too much! You get more than enough from one cake.

I never realized how many different sprinkles there could be! By using the melted chocolate for glue, you just "glue" on different sprinkles. Super cute!