Easter 2011

Happy Easter!


This year, things were so busy leading up to Easter, that we didn’t have time to dye eggs until the day before. But I’m glad we found time, because it’s always so fun to do with the kids. We used bright colors and glitter eggs and the kids enjoyed using the magic crayon to write their names or draw pictures on the eggs before we dyed them.

On Easter Morning, we went through our Resurrection Eggs and told the story of Easter. Then we opened our Easter baskets and looked for eggs in the house. We also had some yummy homemade blueberry scones for breakfast, before going to church early to help set-up. We had a really nice morning and heard a great message about the Prodigal Son from our pastor. After church we had an Easter Egg Hunt. The kids really enjoy doing this at church every year and went home with lots of goodies!

Resurrection Eggs

Ava with her Easter basket

Drew with his Easter basket

Finding some eggs that the bunny left

Ava and Keilani at the church egg hunt

Drew, Jacob, Ty and Tommy at the church egg hunt

Ava finding eggs

Drew finding eggs

Eben and Drew with their loot

We celebrated Easter with our good friends, the Quayles again this year. It’s so nice to have friends that are like family! Each family made a contribution to dinner and we had a really nice spread! The kids loved playing together in the backyard and got to do another egg hunt. The adults enjoyed spending time together and we got to play too—we played cornhole! It was such a nice, relaxing holiday. I hope your Easter was just as blessed!

The Quayle Family

Our Family

Drew and Ava ready for Egg Hunt #3

All the kids ready to look for eggs

Checking out their baskets

Our yummy Easter spread

Ava, Keilani and Molly

Drew and Jacob

Lunch with Grandma Honey

On Friday, since the kids were still on spring break, I took them up to Sutter Creek to take my Grandma out to lunch. We are members of a wine club up there and I needed to pick up my wine and my Grandma lives very close to the winery. So we picked her up and headed to Villa Toscana for their members luncheon. She loves seeing the kids, and they love seeing her! We had a great little pasta lunch and got to enjoy beautiful views of the grapevines all around us. We all had a great time! We love you Grandma Honey!

Sledding (Spring Break)

Since we just had an awesome vacation during President’s Week, we didn’t do a whole lot for spring break. We did some fun things close to home, and on Wednesday we took the kids up to Adventure Mountain to do some sledding. It was a really nice place with lots of groomed trails, a snack bar and bathrooms. We all had a lot of fun sledding and I was so glad that both kids had the energy to drag their sleds back up the mountain again and again.

Ava sledding

Drew sledding

After some sledding, the kids wanted to build a snowman. We all worked together to build one and were just putting the finishing touches on, when Drew accidently pushed the head off when he was trying to put the mouth on the snowman. I thought it was funny, but he was upset. He didn’t want to take a picture with our headless snowman, but Ava was willing. I eventually convinced him to come back and join us. Then we had a really fun family snowball fight! We were just about ready to go home when it started to snow and sleet on us, so we packed up and headed down the hill for home. It was a really fun little trip!

Working on our snowman

Sad snowman-maybe he knew his fate?

Ava with her headless snowman :)

Drew didn't want to be in the picture

Both kids with our 2/3 of a snowman

Palm Sunday Trip

My mom’s whole side of the family gathered together for a pre-Easter celebration at my grandma and grandpa’s house in Burbank. We had a great time together with family that we don’t get to see much. The kids loved being there. They even put an Easter egg hunt together for the kids. The adults played bag- it . We all enjoyed visiting and being together. We had a delicious dinner, prepared by my Italian grandmother—so you know we had so much food we could hardly walk! It was a a great way to spend the weekend before Easter!

Our whole family!

Baby Amalia with Uncle Adam and her Mama





Amalia, Andrea, Ava

Great Grandpa and GG

Delicious Italian Feast



Ava and Drew with their Auntie

 While we were in the area we also visited with our friends Matt and Jamie and their beautiful girls, Ashely and Lexi. They are such sweet, smart girls, and I wish we could see them more often!

Ava and Baby Lexi

Sweet Ashley

Ava's Field Trip to the Zoo

On Wednesday, Ava’s preschool class got to take a field trip the Folsom Zoo. I love this little zoo. It’s actually an animal sanctuary and all the animals there have been rescued. It’s relatively small and its easy to see everything in a short amount of time. We got to go through the zoo with a docent, so it was a very educational field trip. The kids loved seeing all the animals and learning their names. They got to play a fun game of animal bingo too, using a sticker to cover each animal on the card that we visited. One of the highlights was getting to see the baby bear trying to get a treat out of a butternut squash that the zookeeper had hidden there. Ava could also tell you that it’s not a good idea to pet the deer there because they like to eat poison oak and you could get it on your hands if you touched the deer. After our tour of the zoo, the kids got to play in the park and enjoy their picnic lunches. They all had such a great time at the zoo!

Ava and her friends listening to the docent and marking off their bingo sheets

Baby Bear trying to get a treat

Don't pet the deer!

Ava, Keilani and Molly-Best Buddies

Ava playing in the park