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!

Snow!

We had a really mild December and didn't get any snow in New Jersey, but winter came all at once in one big blizzard in January. We were forecasted to get 8-12 inches of snow, but we ended up getting over two feet of snow in one day. It was crazy!

Josh and I had tickets to Wicked on the day of the storm and we were so nervous about being able to get into the show that day. We had called the theater earlier in the week and they said Broadway doesn't cancel for snowstorms and the show would be going on. It turned out that the snow was so bad that it shut down all the trains going into NYC that morning and all Broadway shows were cancelled for the day. We were bummed about missing our show, but it turned out to be a fun snow day as a family. School, work, and church were cancelled that Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

(And we ended up getting a refund for our tickets and bought tickets for a few weeks later).

Tate was mesmerized by the snow and he loved watching the snow plows, Josh's shovelling, and Bryn's diving around in the snow. 

The snow drifts against our back door.

 Shoveling!

Let me just say, someday I will have a paved driveway and it will be glorious. Shoveling a gravel driveway, without tearing up all the gravel and dirt, is no fun. 

Tate!

 We live on the dead end of a really quiet street, so Josh spent the afternoon driving his moped up and down the street, pulling Bryn/Mya/me! behind him.

Mya was nervous at first, but she loved it!

 At one point, Josh pulled me and Mya on the sled, while Bryn ran excitedly beside us ....and Tate napped inside. Fun times!

 Me + Mya Girl

 Me + Brynnie Babe

Bryn really wanted to do it together with Mya, but this didn't last long. Mya was too nervous doing it with Bryn :)

Snow days always = hot cocoa!

I usually groan when I see snow in the forecast, but it really does make for some good family fun.

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 :)

Family Christmas Sleepover

 First of all, Mya's expression in that picture above is cracking me up :)

The weekend before Christmas we had our annual family sleepover under the Christmas tree. It's a fun tradition that our kids love.

 We started off by opening new pajamas. Tate wouldn't stand still for a picture, so the only "group" shot we got was Josh squeezing them all together and lifting them off the ground :)

We made Christmas-tree brownies, kind of by accident! We were just going to make regular brownies, but then Bryn and I noticed the left-over frosting and candy from our Gingerbread party and quickly turned our brownies into Christmas trees with pretzel trunks and ice cream snow. Bryn's creativity always comes in handy in situations like this. Yum.

 In past years we have watched the classic Grinch movie and the old Rudolph/Abominable Snowman movies. This year we watched the Polar Express. 

After the movie we moved our beds from in front of the TV to in front of the Christmas tree and then we said goodnight and fell asleep listening to Bryn and Mya's chattering and giggles.

Christmas Sunday Best

 The Sunday before Christmas is always one of my favorites. At church there are beautiful messages shared about Christ, as well as beautiful Christmas songs performed. It's also a time for Bryn and Mya to wear their new Christmas outfits and feel all fancy-fancy.

 This was the best of the pictures with me and the kids. Tate was trying to jam his hand into my mouth every time I opened my mouth to smile, and the girls were just bring their normal silly selves. 

 I love these four!

 Tate man! His little toothy smile is just too much for me!

Christmas

 Christmas is such a magical day with little children. I look forward to it all year. 

This year the kids slept in a bit since we had a late night the night before. Then they burst through the wrapping paper wall and scampered down the stairs to see what Santa brought. 

 Tate was a big fan of the hoop!

 The main gifts from Santa this year were the hoop and a big Duplo set, and the kids had fun with both.

 Last year we got together with Jake and Tyra's family for Christmas brunch and our kids had fun running around with their cousins. But this year we did our own thing since Jake and Tyra are in the process of moving to Chicago and were away on Christmas. (We are going to miss having them close by - especially on holidays when it's so nice to be with family!)

 Bryn's favorite gift was the "Princess Celestia" pony that she's been wanting for a long time.

 My boys!

 Tate loved Christmas day. The wrapping paper, bows, crawling under the tree and getting into mischief. His last day of wreaking havoc with the Christmas tree ornaments before I put the tree away on Christmas night... haha! 

Mya's favorite gifts were fresh art supplies and coloring books.

Later on, we got together with some friends for a delicious Christmas dinner and game night. It was a great Christmas!