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!

Valentine's Fun

Here are a few pictures from our Valentine's activities in February...

 I have felt Valentine's envelopes for the kids that hang on our kitchen chairs and Josh and I had fun sending the girls love notes throughout the month. The girls also send notes to each other, which was really sweet. On February 1st the girls got these matching heart shirts in their envelopes to kick off the month of LOVE.

 They are so excited every time they get matching clothes! 

 Bryn's school class didn't allow candy Valentine's, so she made these valentine's with mazes: "Valentine, you're a-MAZE-ing!"

One of Mya's very favorite things is baking and cooking with me, so she was thrilled to help me make sugar cookies. 

 Yum.

The Friday before Valentine's Day we had a fun play date with Bryn's cute little friend Jane. She came over after school and the girls frosted cookies, played V-day tic-tac-toe, and made Valentine's. 

Mya working hard.

 That's a whole lot of pink and sugar!

Bryn and Jane love doing secret service, so they made plates of cookies for six families in our town and wrote them secret love notes. 

 Getting crafty

 Some of the valentine's they made

 Masked Jane and Bryn, delivering their cookies and cards. They were giggling the whole time. They got caught at a few of the houses, but their masks may have saved them :)

My friend Tessa planned the cutest Valentine's Day party for all the little kids from church. Mya had such a fun time frosting cupcakes, making valentine's, and playing with her cute little friends. Thanks for the perfect party, Tessa!

 One of the best Valentine's activities this year was a special afternoon with our friends the Kochs and the Ures. Laura Koch is a talented baker and chocolate maker and she was nice enough to share her secrets with us! The girls had fun decorating cupcakes and learning how to make gourmet chocolates. Yum!

 This was such a fun afternoon and the chocolates were such a treat. What a fun Valentine's tradition, right!? Someday I want to get all the chocolate molds and everything needed to make this an annual tradition. 

 Bryn and Jane, packaging the chocolates into cute little gift boxes that Laura had. 

Thank you, Laura!!

Lastly, here is our first attempt at a heart-shaped pizza. It doesn't look very pretty (and that old cookie sheet isn't helping), but it was yummy and the girls always get so excited about things like this. So I'm counting it as a win :)

I've said it before - Holidays really are so much fun with little kids! 

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 Gingerbread Men

In December we had our third annual Gingerbread party with friends. This year the Egans and Thomases joined us in decorating (and eating!) gingerbread men.

I use my mom's yummy gingerbread recipe that is so soft and good. I may need a new gingerbread cookie cutter, though- because mine makes very squat, chubby gingerbread that almost look like flowers instead of gingerbread men :)

Some festive toppings

Some of the crew getting started on their cookies

 Bryn and Mya

Tate enjoyed observing the chaos and munching on his gingerbread man.

 Two of the Thomas girls with their creations

 Two of the Egan kids with their creations

 It was a fun and delicious night!

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!