St. Louis day 3/Easter!

Easter morn dawned warm and sunny, the only warm day we had. Of course kids were up really early to find their baskets-

My mom had sent an Easter book for Connor to read to the grandkids-

Kristina made matching ties for all the boys to wear, and matching hair bows for the girls out of the same fabric, only in ribbon form with a smaller print. I love these pictures and the memories of how handsome and beautiful all the kids looked! Thanks again Kristina for the effort-

Connor and Ben-

Lucas and Nolan-

Our family on Easter-

Handsome Easter Brian-

Easter sisters-

Since Kristina has churchat 12:30, and Lara's family had to leave then, we decided to make a nice Easter brunch and then just have leftovers after church. So glad we did this! It was so delicious: we made hot ham and cheese sliders (wow!), pasta salad, Mel's orange sweet rolls (yum!), fresh fruit, and had some fun Trader Joe's beverages-

I like this sequence of Mason and Parker. Toddlers can be such funny people!

After brunch is was time to blow bubbles and say goodbye to the McDowells-

We went to church; the kids had fun going to Primary with their cousin. After church we had some nice quiet time, and then walked to the nearby park. Then it was bath time - which is always more fun with a cousin:

and we had another set of matching pajamas, this time Isabel and Ellie-

It was such a nice Easter, with family, good food, wonderful church meeting, and most of all a celebration of the Savior's atonement and resurrection. Very grateful for all of these blessings!

St. Louis trip days 1 and 2

We spent spring break/Easter in St. Louis this year. We went there four years ago for Easter, and it was really fun to go again, as the kids are enough older to really enjoy and remember much more this time.

Day 1: We left on Friday, and the kids were thrilled to miss the last day of school before spring break. We did the drive in one long day (about 15 hours with stops), but our kids have grown up doing long road trips and are quite good at them. Of course, we make the most of rest stops (lots of running jumping climbing and general energy burning), snacks and DVDs. But they really did great. Even Mason. Which is saying something.

Connor, ever the vehicle boy, had to have a pic with some big semi trucks at a stop-

We arrived at Kristina's house around 10 p.m. CST, tired but happy to be there!

Day 2: My sister Lara and her family also were in St. Louis from Minnesota for their spring break, which was the week before ours, so we overlapped for the weekend. So fun for all the cousins to be together for a day and a half, except little Aidan who was back in Colorado.

We took the MetroLink train downtown to the Gateway Arch. It was a cool, cloudy, grey day.

At the train station, excited to be together and to be going on a fun adventure!

On the train (notice my poor sister Lara who gets horrible motion sickness but was a real trooper on the train)-

The Gateway Arch! Unfortunately it was really busy that day and by the time we arrived, trips to the top were sold out. We were disappointed; we went to the top last time we were there and it was awesome. So we had to settle for walking around the grounds, which are lovely; they are even more lovely when everything blooms green in the near future; it was still quite brown when we were there-

We went into the Museum of Westward Expansion, a free museum located beneath the Arch underground. Awesome museum!

(Lucas LOVES buffalo)

We walked down by the Mississippi River, between the Arch and the river. Really cool area. The kids had a blast running up the hill and rolling back down. It's also fun to watch the riverboats, and there was a statue of Lewis and Clark that Brian really liked-

Can you see our family beneath the Arch?

We walked back to the train station, and it started to downpour just minutes after we got there. Seriously lucky and happy we did not get caught in the rain. The Arch through an arch at the train station-

We wanted to go to Fitz's for dinner, a local root beer brewery and restaurant, but the wait was ridiculously long so we settled for a pizza party at Kristina's house. The cousins loved being together and just having some down time on a cozy, rainy Saturday night-

"Twas Easter eve! The super excited children got ready for bed, and had fun hiding carrots throughout the house for the Easter bunny, a family tradition we grew up with (this is minus Ellie and Parker, who went to bed early and exhausted)-

Lucas and Nolan, cousin buddies in matching PJs from grandma (Christmas gifts); these two (both 5 years old; Lucas is about 5 1/2 months older) became really close on this trip and spent much time together. Love.

March celebrations

I enjoy March celebrations. They are not major holidays, thus I don't feel much pressure, but we have simple fun that doesn't take much effort but has given us many memories.

For Dr. Seuss' birthday, we put up our banner-

Brian made green eggs and ham (and green juice?) or breakfast-

We did our annual Dr. Seuss' read-a-thon-

We had Brian's parents and his sister Kelley's family over for dinner that night, to celebrate his mom's birthday. We had also just found out that Kelley is expecting a baby girl this summer (she has two boys and lost a baby girl who was born at 25 weeks), so I felt we had much to celebrate! I made a chocolate tres leches cake (um, yeah, wow) and everyone topped their pieces with either truffula trees (cotton candy on top of paper straws), a Happy Birthday sign or an It's a Girl sign. Like I said, much to celebrate-

We also did our standard St. Patrick's Day celebrations. I like to make an effort on this day, because Brian and I have so much Irish heritage. I sorta make it an Irish heritage day.

I made this little craft project-

For breakfast we had Lucky Charms in our green-shaded Anthro bowls, as well as shamrock scones-

All dressed in green for church-

We did our hunt or a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow; the kids seriously LOVE this and other than buying some chocolate gold coins and printing a rainbow, this takes all of about a minute. I was dying of laughter right before the hunt when I asked the kids, "I wonder where it is hidden?" and Connor responded, "probably in your closet like it is every year." When I then had to send the kids outside for a few minutes and Brian realized why, I thought he was going to hit the floor b/c he was laughing so hard. Needless to say, he then hid the pot of gold this year. And it was a MUCH more challenging hunt. ;)

For dinner I made Irish stew and shamrock-shaped biscuits-

and we listened to Irish music, looked at pictures of Ireland, and talked about Irish relatives. I am happy that the kids enjoy these things so much and get so into it. It makes me happy to make the small extra effort to put together these celebrations.