Happy Easter!

Easter was so exciting this year! The kids are really getting into the swing of things with the holidays and their wide-eyed rapture is so fun to witness.  I dragged myself out of bed at 6:30am when I heard little pattering of feet and excited exclamations coming from downstairs.  Gabe and Nyah were scouring the house for their hidden baskets and coming across the eggs they decorated the day before and set out for the Easter Bunny to hide.  It was a blast to watch!

Later we headed to the park and played games like the egg toss, the egg roll and the relay where you balance an egg on a spoon and run! It was really fun - even with only our little family.  Ian army-crawled around the park and ate his fair share of dirt and grass while we played. :)

For Easter Sunday we had friends and the missionaries for dinner. What a fun holiday to kick off Spring!

Dear Easter Bunny

Gabe left this wonderful note for the Easter Bunny this year.  He is such a sweet boy. I can tell he badly wants to believe but at the same time he questions everything and wants to analyze it and figure it all out. He is a very literal kind of guy . Not like me at all. I don't remember ever even thinking about the particulars of things - I just accepted and enjoyed! But he wants to understand it all.  My favorite was how he would ask us very serious questions in a nonchalant way: how big is the Easter Bunny? what color was he? did he walk on just two legs?  I told him I had never seen the Easter Bunny so I didn't know what he looked like or how he walked/hopped. Eric told him he thought he was a giant purple bunny. Gabe just smiled and shook his head and said, no Dad I think he is white. When it was time for bed he made sure the baskets were filled with paper grass and laid out on the table, and bowl of carrots waited next to his sweet little note. When he was setting out the plastic eggs (which after he asked about I told him the E. B. fills the eggs we leave out) he asked me how the Easter Bunny was going to open the eggs to fill them with candy when he only has little paws. He thoughtfully left all the plastic eggs open to make his job easier.  Gabe is such a sweet little guy!!

a trip to the zoo

We tagged along with our friends' preschool field trip to the zoo the other day. It was gorgeous weather and I'm so happy we got out of the house to enjoy it.  It has been a long and rainy winter.  Here are some cute pictures of our fun day.

That is Nyah's friend Emmy in the purple - her little bestie! They are adorable together!

The double stroller brigade (I had mine as well!)

Our little sweetheart not too thrilled to be stuck in the stroller. When I took him out he started squealing he was so happy!

Gabe begged all day to see the flamingos - his fave!

Are those kids laying flamingo eggs on those nests?!

bananas make me happy

I used to cut up Ian's food in little chunks for him to pick up.  But one day I was in a hurry (in other words he was starving and not shy about letting me know it) and I handed him half a banana. He immediately stopped whining and looked at the banana, then me, then the banana, with this gleam of excitement in his eye. Then he started this funny little laugh like "huh, huh, huh" and reached tentatively for this new and strange object to eat. He was absolutely thrilled as he ate it and ever since he loves it when I give him a banana to eat on his own.  Even now, he can be crying but if I hand him a banana, he stops and gives me a little smile as he stuffs it in.  He is so darn cute!!