The Great Swamp

 I'm way behind on updating my blog because of our move to California, but I'm going to try to get caught up! Here are some pictures from one of our favorite places in New Jersey, the Great Swamp. It was about 15 minutes from our home and it was the perfect place to enjoy nature and let the kids run around.

 Watching the toads and turtles. We also saw the coolest thing on this trip to the swamp: there was a little birds nest in a tree right off the boardwalk and while we were watching the baby birds in the nest we saw the beautiful yellow mama bird fly to the nest and feed her babies. So cool!

Easter

 I love Easter time. It's such a beautiful time of year to celebrate Jesus Christ and to welcome spring, with feelings of renewal and hope and newness. 

We had a fun time at the community Easter Egg hunt the week before Easter. (I love that I live in a small enough town that does fun little activities like this). The kids had a great time and surprise, surprise- little Miss Mya found the golden egg for her age group! She's not as dramatic or expressive as her big sister, so her reaction was so funny. She just calmly picked up the golden egg, plopped it into her bucket, and just gave me a little smile.

She was thrilled to turn in her golden egg and redeem it for a life-sized chocolate bunny!

(Bryn was not so thrilled about this situation, since she had been desperately searching for the golden egg. It was a good lesson on being happy for your siblings and how you can't always be the "winner".)

Mya is in love with her bunny!

I say "is" in present tense because the bunny is still around! She eats about 1-2 bites a day, so she's only eaten to his eyes. Josh is threatening to chuck it, but I think it's so comical to see her take a little nibble each day. :)

Rocking her chocolate bunny baby.

 Instead of plastic eggs with candy, our city hid hundreds of beautiful hand-dyed eggs. I thought they were so pretty!

 Easter Sunday. We didn't have time to snap a photo before church, and by the time church ends no one is in the mood for a good picture!

 It must be a holiday if rolls are being made! We had a lovely Easter dinner at my cousin Cara's new home, with another family from our ward. It was such a great evening. What a blessing to live five minutes away from family!

 We did a little Easter egg hunt (this time with candy-filled eggs!) in the Newman's backyard. 

Thumbs up for a wonderful Easter!

Saying Goodbye to the Hawkins

 Some of our very favorite people moved away from New Jersey this past month.... our cousins!!!

What a blessing it was to live under 10 minutes away from Josh's brother Jake and his family. It was so great to live so close to cousins. We saw them every Sunday at church (Jake was our bishop) and we loved getting together with them for holidays and other events. Oh man, we will miss them! But we're so excited for their new adventures in Chicago.

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A few weeks before they moved we got to babysit our nieces and nephews while Jake and Ty went out to Chicago to get things all set with their new home. It was so fun to have a whole week full of cousin time! We spent all our free time playing games and trying to soak up every last minute together. It was also a trial run for Josh and I to see what life would be like with seven kids! Ha ha!

 Josh is gonna miss these two! He's been working with them in the youth program at church and has loved spending time with these two every Sunday and Wednesday, as well as the campouts and scouting activities. 

At Isaac's basketball game

 We played more games a few weeks later when we had our last Sunday dinner with Jake and Tyra's family :(

 Tate has been spoiled by these cousins, so he's going to miss them!

 Our best attempt at a group pic, self-timer style.

(We're missing my wonderful niece Abby who had already moved to Chicago at this point).

I love this one with Leah :)

Christmas Eve

 We spent Christmas Eve with some of our good friends from church: the Thomas family, Hibbs family, Comparetto family, and the Ure family. We always miss family at Christmas time, but thank goodness for dear friends who feel like family! I didn't take many pictures, but here are a few blurry pictures to document a few parts of the fun night. 

 Bryn and Mya being silly during the candy game.

 Bryn was the angel in the Nativity just like last year. This year she added a fur coat to her angel costume to add a little more drama to her role. 

I love these cute kids that my children get to be friends with.

 Laps full of sweet kids who feel more like nieces and nephews. 

 Maddie loves babies and somehow put Tate into a trance. He never cuddles like this with anyone besides Josh and I, but somehow Maddie got him to lay on her lap for a long time. 

 Afterwards we put the kids to bed and got ready for Christmas. After many years of girly gifts at Christmas, Josh was so pleased that Santa brought a basketball hoop this year. I think Josh has used it as much as the kids have :)

Hiking with the Newmans

 We love living close to my cousin Cara and her family. We also love living close to the Watchung Reservation. So when we combine those two things it makes for a good time!

Lucy, Bryn, Olivia, and Mya

Sweet, silly second-cousins

Hiking in Watchung

 The Watchung Reservation is just 5 minutes from our house, so we've loved doing some hiking there this fall. 

 Bryn's poses are always so off the wall.

My favorite little hiking crew!

Apple Picking

 There's a great orchard ten minutes from home, so we had a fun afternoon apple picking with our good friends the Egans. The kids had so much fun picking (and sampling) apples. 

 Mya's poses crack me up