Weekend recap

Its difficult for me to believe that Easter has already come and gone. Spring is literally right around the corner...the trees and flowers are preparing to burst into life (some already have) and the weather is turning warm. It was nearly 85 over the weekend! Beautiful! Simply beautiful!

On Saturday morning, our neighbors Kristin and Bill invited us down to their house to color Easter eggs with their daughter, Emily. It was Luke's first egg coloring experience, and he did really well! I had purchased a coloring kit last year and was all ready to use it with him, but then we decided that he just wasn't ready for it. Or we got too busy...I don't actually recall now. But this year, he was more than ready! He had fun choosing the colors and adding stickers to the eggs, and Ty and I had a nice time chatting with our friends while we worked. I had some pics of the morning, but I'm on Ty's laptop and I can't access those right now. They'll have to wait. But it was a fun morning!

On Saturday night, Ty arranged for his mom to come up to be with the kids and he took me out on a date! :) Nothing fancy...just BJ's pizza for drinks and yummy food, but we had a great time nonetheless. Its always nice to steal away together for awhile and just talk!

Sunday morning, we got up and prepared for the day. Luke hunted for his Easter basket, and was delighted to find it filled with a few special new toys, some things for the bath and a bit of candy! His favorite item was a set of toy binoculars that he had his eye on for awhile. After that, the boys went outside to wash cars and Ellie and I got ourselves prettied up! :) Here is a little shot of us just before we headed out for the day...


It turned out to a picture kind of day! There are very few opportunities these days to capture pictures of my family together, so I seized the chance to have Ty take some of the kids and I, and then we did a little photo shoot later in the day too. Here are my sweet children and I before hitting the road for my sister's house.


We drove out to Palm Desert then, and spent the day with my sister and the 'tousins'. Luke adores his 'tousins'. He talked for days and days before Easter about seeing them. He just loves them!!! As we arrived, I set up my little backdrop and did a little photo shoot with the kids before they all got hot and sweaty from playing. I took a zillion pictures of all of them together, but Luke was being a stinker at the time and wouldn't cooperate or smile. :( So none of those really turned out. :( But here is one of just the girls. Taryn is now almost 13 and in 7th grade now. Kailyn will be 5 in July and Megan will turn 11 in July as well! They are all so grown up! Its hard to believe!


Next was Ellie's turn! She was so adorable in her little white dress that I couldn't resist snapping a thousand pictures of her! She is so cooperative for the camera too! I takes very little to get her smiling and looking right at me. So vastly different from her brother! (That's why there are no individual shots of him!)


Then it was time to turn the camera on ourselves, and my sister so graciously played photographer for me! :) Finally....a family portrait! Its only taken 7 months!!!


The kids hunted Easter eggs after that. Luke LOVED this part, and I frequently found him sorting through his loot, sneaking bites of chocolate or jelly beans before heading onto the next egg! He was so funny!


The day was certainly full! After dinner, dessert and LOTS more playing, we got the kids dressed in their pj's, scooped them up and headed home as the sun was setting behind the mountains. It was a beautiful day!