Sunday, April 11, 2010

Easter and spring

Ah, spring. We are all healthy and can play outside almost every day! Elizabeth is like a little puppy, begging to go outside as soon as she wakes up in the morning, even before breakfast. And once we get outside, it is quite a tricky business getting the girls to want to come inside at all! We've definitely been enjoying playing with lots of friends and family lately, inside the house and out.

Here's Daddy dancing with the girls in their pajamas. It's one of their favorite activities to play and dance to music with their Daddy.


We had a visit from grown-up Vanessa, our friend from NJ. Her little girl Samantha is the cutie next to Elizabeth. Samantha was a very gracious sharer, taking the ride-on car for a spin while she waited for a turn on the bike. And she reminded Elizabeth of all the fun one can have throwing all the balls around and hiding in the princess castle. Elizabeth was quite happy to have a peer in our house for once, especially such a fun and friendly one!

Toddler Vanessa also had a great time with Samantha. Finally, another little girl to explain the rules to! And I enjoyed the time with grown-up Vanessa and Samantha too. I can't wait to see them next time.


Here are Vanessa and Elizabeth dressed up in their bat costumes again. I think this is the first time though that I've managed to take a picture of Vanessa in her bat girl costume. For some reason I think she thinks it's a game not to get her picture taken while she's wearing the costume. Haha, I win!



I decided quite at the last minute to take the girls to an Easter egg hunt. I'm really glad I did. They had a blast! We met up with Vanessa's friend Paige, on the left in this picture. All three girls were so excited to have so much green grass for running around on!




Vanessa found five eggs. She asked me, "Did I win?" I told her that everyone is a winner in this kind of hunt. She told me, "I didn't push anybody." I told her that made her the BEST kind of winner, and she shouted "Yay!" and ran off excitedly.



Elizabeth did a great job with her hunt, which was inside just after Vanessa's hunt ended. She found 9 eggs, but I did get to help direct her a little. I thought it was interesting that both Elizabeth and Vanessa had to learn that they couldn't pick up a second egg while still holding the first egg. Here is Elizabeth about to learn just that lesson.



There were some crafts to keep the kids busy before and after hunts. Here is Elizabeth having entirely too much fun with a purple glue stick. It took some convincing to get her to move on to something else.



There were also some white eggs to decorate with foam stickers. This is a GREAT idea. We also dyed some eggs at Nana's house on Easter the next day, but it was a little messier. The girls stayed pretty clean remarkably, but I got to be quite colorful.



Here's Vanessa just being goofy about Easter. She's wearing a scarf, mittens, and a basket.



Grace and her mommy came to visit one afternoon last week. I think it's so sweet how Vanessa and Grace love to give each other hugs. And Elizabeth and I look forward to Grace's and her mommy's visits so much too!