Easter

Linsey was excited all week.  This year she got to participate in the teen flashlight hunt Friday night instead of the usual Easter egg hunt on Saturday morning.  She invited a couple of her friends over to play games and then they walked down to the park together.  

They all wore head lamps and brought backpacks that they turned around so they could use both hands and stash their candy quickly, they talked strategy all evening.

This is not your typical Easter egg hunt.  In fact, there are no eggs.  The kids use flashlights and hunt through the forest area of a nearby park for full size candy bars, cans of soda, packs of gum, and bags of chips.

They came home with a serious stash of goods.  Here they are pulling out all their candy and trading.  Linsey was nice and gave Hunter a big bag of licorice, his favorite!

Saturday morning was the traditional Easter egg hunt.
I asked the kids to smile and this is what Austin decided was smiling.

He had practiced hunting for eggs with his cousins and it paid off.  While other kids got an egg or two, and then stopped to eat the candy or became overwhelmed with all of the excitement, Austin raced around gathering a whole basket full of eggs.  He was pretty proud of himself too.

 

I love this picture of Linsey coaching Emma.

Hunter decided that his name insists he has to do well in a "HUNT."  He was really hoping to find the golden egg this year, but seemed to be okay with his stash of candy in the end.  Maybe next year.

I always have my kids pose with the Easter Bunny.  Too bad our pictures didn't turn out this year.  You know how it is when you wait in line and once it's finally your turn, you feel rushed to get a picture because everyone else is waiting.  It was bright and I knew I wasn't getting great shots, but I didn't realize how bad they were til I got home and looked through my pictures.  This one has to be my favorite.

This one is not much better.

Sometimes it's the un-posed shots that turn out the cutest anyway.

Uncle Mat, Aunt Bri, Olivia & Hudson came to stay with us for Easter.

Not the greatest shot again, but here they are all dressed up in their Easter best.

We had a yummy Easter dinner. I put the girls to work making silverware bundles and name tags for everyone.  I loved how they called these "healthy cupcakes."

Yum!

It was a wonderful day.  

Spring Break

It would have been great to go somewhere sunny and warm for Spring Break, but we didn't want to leave Jared (he still had work and school).  We are pretty easily entertained and going to visit my parents seemed like the perfect alternative.  It wasn't sunny, in fact it was really windy some of the days, but that didn't matter.  We had a great time!

Grandma had all sorts of fun crafts for the kids to do.  Hunter did this really cool painting.

 

 My girls made scrapbooks.

We went to parks, watched movies, and did a lot of visiting and relaxing.  It was just what we all needed.

One day my dad took off work and planned a fun outing for us to the McNary Dam.  We hoped to see some fish swimming up the fish ladder, but it was just our luck that we picked the worst month out of the entire year.

 

 

In case you can't tell, clear on the left is April.  Guess we'll have to come back in May, or really any other month.  It was pretty cool and we could tell that it would be a really neat place to visit when there are fish to see.

 

  We walked around some nature trails.

 We roasted hot dogs and s'mores.

 It was pretty windy.  See that red cooler in the background, it blew right off the table.

 But, no one complained and we still had our fun!

My kids love to roller skate.

And Grandpa loves to take them.

We left Kennewick after a couple days of fun and headed over to Olympia to visit the Madills and McInelly Grandparents. We had pizza, an Easter egg hunt which proved to be a great warm up for the real thing (more on that later), and had a sleepover with the cousins.

 

Loved Spring Break.