Easter 2016

It was a busy spring break. Not only did we go to Comic Con  but we also got to celebrate Easter with family. 

We started the week before Easter and celebrated with our Bellamy Family, we had a traditional Easter dinner (with one too many pans of funeral potatoes) and the traditional egg hunt. 

Look what I found! 

Eve trying to figure out where her parents hid the eggs
this year

Bellamy cousins! 

The next morning the kids woke up to find their baskets. They were all quickly found and everyone seemed happy. They had informed their parents this year that they now all only eat "good" chocolate. Meaning, they perfer to eat the Lindt or Ghiradelli stuff. So they were all super happy that those choices found their way into their baskets this year along with some new Disney Infinity characters.

"Hey, did any of you leave this little pink thing here"

"No takers, I guess I will claim it." 

We tried creating our own dyes this year with food coloring. The kids loved creating their own colors and I loved the way that they turned out.

The kids all got to pick out new church clothes for Easter, not a moment too soon because we had dresses that were getting too small, pants that had holes in the knees, and ties that were unraveling.
They each got to pick what they would wear, well not Abby. We got Abby's dress over a year ago.  And each of the outfits shows who they are, I love it.

Sisters

Brothers

These boys can't not goof off for more than one minute

So happy Easter from us to you!

Happy Easter

Easter this year spread into two weeks as we had two Easter celebrations with our families. 

The first was with the Bellamy's this year. We had a fun egg hunt after dinner with 108 eggs hidden. 

 We found all of them but four of them. One of the lost eggs was Laine's and that was all we heard about for the rest of the week...more on that later though. 

It was a lot of fun and the kids took that candy as something to hold them over until Easter Sunday.

I have learned over the years that if we are going to take Easter pictures than we need to make sure we take them before church. With nine o'clock church this can be difficult, to add to that this year with my church responsibilities I need to be at church fifteen minutes early. This meant we were hurrying...we did get a few good shots in though. 

The girls picked out their own dresses this year, not unusual, what was unusual is that while shopping individually they both picked the two same outfits to try on. I thought it was funny that they both chose to try on the same outfits but chose differently from one another. 

The girls were easy to get pictures of, the boys....not so much.

Yup, life with boys, always fun. 

Since school pictures are generally not that good I take the Easter pictures each year and frame them in our home. Best decision we ever made. 

Laine is getting more beautiful every year. She has her own sense of style, which I love.  I was helping Laine with her hair that morning and she told me she did not want it curled, that wasn't the "look" she was going for. 

Eve can't stop getting cuter. She also has her own sense of style and it is very different from her sisters. While Laine didn't want anyone to touch her hair, Eve had her hair done in curlers the night before. 

The dog was very distressed while we were taking these pictures and decided to watch the festivities. 

The girls were easy to take pictures of...the boys again proved to be difficult. 

I did eventually get James to stand still and smile for one brief second. 

Matty was a whole other story. This little picture taking session amused the neighbors to no end.

 Yup...

 At least out of the fifty pictures we got one that was useable.

This one makes me so sad, They were all looking at dad so I was at the wrong angle.

 We got the pictures done and made it to church with time to spare.

 We dyed the eggs after church this year. Since we didn't do an egg hunt in the morning I figured that it was okay.

Then it was time for the Bradley dinner party We had 168 eggs for that one.

Matty insisted on wearing his viking hat during the hunt. 

The kids had a lot of fun with the egg hunt and Laine found her lost egg from the week before, right where dad had told her. 

Poor puppy was kept out of these festivities  too, but got a few dog treats from cousins. 

We tried to take a picture of all the cousins there...my James mad a crazy face in each one.

The best thing was the face changed with each picture. 

So happy Easter everyone!

Easter Fun

Easter time!! We had so much fun this past weekend celebrating Easter with our families and participating in so many fun egg hunts. 

We started our fun Easter weekend up in Oakley with the Bradley family. There we participated in a fun egg hunt provided by Grandma and Grandpa. The kids had fun trying to find their eggs and they all enjoyed exploring great new hiding places. 

Oh and for today's entry into the mother of the year contest- I left my 21 month old's jacket sitting at home on the kitchen counter. Good thing he really does have the brother of the year who was willing to let his little brother wear his jacket all day.

Later that day we dyed Easter eggs all together. We also discovered that the brown and yellow chicken eggs from Uncle James and Aunt Kirsten's chickens dyed fabulous colors.

The next day we woke up to the Easter Bunny hopping through the cabin and leaving our dyed eggs in his wake.

The kids were great sports this year posing for pictures. The girls were proud of their dresses, which they picked out themselves this year. James wanted matchy outfits with Matty so I was very happy to comply.

Of course Matty decided that he had enough of pictures and decided to tell his sisters all about the injustice of having to sit still outside when there were some great toys right on the other side.

Since I got a new camera for our anniversary earlier in the week I used the nice clothes and great backgrounds to take new pictures of each kid. The ones I have of the girls and Matty are almost two years old. So we snapped some new pictures to update the wall in our bedroom.

I really can't believe how fast they are all growing up. It just makes me sad a little bit but excited about the adventures we have to come.

After a relaxing morning in Oakley we headed back home so the girls and I could sing in our ward's Easter program and to get ready for the Bellamy Easter dinner.

Dinner was fabulous and we discovered that our yard was the best place to have an egg hunt. We hid about 165 eggs for everyone-including adults- to find. It was a huge success.

This was one of my favorite pictures. We sat all the kids down to take their pictures and my niece Sophie decided that she needed some of Matty's candy too.

Notice that they are still going for the Candy in the picture below.

We had a great holiday!