Springtime photos: Beware, there are lots!

I always forget to upload pictures to my computer. This means, of course, that when I do, you all get a whole bucketload of pictures to look at all at once. Don't worry, I'm not delusional enough to think that the majority of you really care about viewing 25 pictures of my children in one sitting, but my mom does, so this is for her. I'll try to explain them the best I can, but it's late and I'm tired, so you get what you get and don't get upset.
My mom took Alayna to the Solomon Center up in Ogden back in March and let her go hog wild at the arcade. When all was said and done, she came home with some fun treasures and the kids have had a blast with them, especially the googly eye glasses.


I do have a picture of Eli in the glasses, but I like this one of him in the Pretty Pretty Princess jewelry even more. I really think this is about the happiest I've seen him, ever, which is kind of worrisom.


And from happy and crossdressing, we fast forward to furious and cold. This picture was taken on April Fool's Day. Yeah, good one, Mother Nature. He looks like I felt.

That same week of April Fool's and Easter, we were dog sitting for our neighbor across the street. That was the week we learned that pets are not in our family's immediate future. Eli loved the dog, though, and insisted on hand feeding her every morning and night, one little dog food nugget at a time. Notice how his mouth opens, as if he's trying to help her eat. I took about 10 pictures that look very similar to this, with his mouth wide open and his hand shoving food into her mouth. She was very patient with the boy, I must say.

And of course, a picture needing no introduction, the annual Easter egg dyeing festivities. It looks like all fun and games, but Eli was actually a big distraction for this event and kept throwing random eggs into the bowls of colored water, cracking the eggs and splashing dye everywhere. Isaac wasn't much cleaner, seeing as he prefered to put his entire hand in the water to retreive the eggs rather than using the spoons we'd set aside for this purpose.

Our beautiful eggs. I think we produce more brown eggs every year than any other color. I will take this same picture next year, and I'm almost certain there will be the same brown-to-colorful egg ratio once again.

This is our traditional Easter egg hunt at Grandma Wardle's house. Every Easter we take a pic with all the grandkids (minus Scott and Tammy's who are always out of town) in this same location. Some years the kids are in shorts, some years it's snowing. This happened to be one of the colder years, yet one of the best pictures we've managed to get. That's a lot of little kids, but man, they are cute!

And here we have my favorite pic of the holiday. My Eli, bless his little heart, was not in the mood for an egg hunt. He just wanted a hot dog and he wanted it ASAP, and this whole egg hunt thing was not on his agenda. I asked him to hold out his basket so I could take a picture of him, and he let out a scream that's still ringing in my ears to this day. So glad I caught that precious moment on camera!
Isaac was a little more willing to pose for a picture with his goods. Notice the fire pit in the background. Fire + 15 kids running around looking for eggs = good times for everyone.
Here we have the best shot I could get of my three little egg hunters. Par for the course.
By the time the other kids had pretty much cleaned up all the eggs, Eli finally figured out that these were something he wanted to possess. I had to take some from Isaac and Alayna and re-hide them so Eli would have something to pick up. He finished the event with a whopping 4 eggs. You snooze you lose, buddy! I have a feeling next year will be a whole different story with this one.
Even after taking some for Eli, Isaac still made quite a haul.

On Saturday night, we laid out our coats and turned them into nests for the Easter bunny. This is one of Jason's family traditions and our kids love it. The Easter baskets are for gathering eggs at hunts, the nests are for the Easter bunny. See the anticipation on their faces before going to bed Saturday night?


And here is the result the next morning. The kids each got a pair of sunglasses and lots of candy filled eggs. Isaac also go a new lunch box for 1st grade and some moon sand, Alayna got a jump rope and jewelry beads, and Eli got a new toothbrush and one of those giant playground balls. He couldn't care less about either of those things and went strait for his candy, and everyone else's for that matter. Within about 3 1/2 minutes of waking up, Eli had made a huge pile of Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs and was already starting to break open some of the plastic ones. He thought he'd died and gone to heaven!


On his 4th candy filled egg, he got that crazy sugar rush look in his eye. Good thing we didn't have church this Easter! I'm sure the nursery leaders wouldn't want to see this kid coming their way!


The Saturday after Easter, we had our annual weenie roast at Aunt Mame's house in South Jordan. Aunte Mame isn't really our aunt, more of a half aunt twice removed kind of thing, and she isn't even alive anymore, but Jason's family and a bunch of other families that are sort of related still get together on her property and roast hot dogs. There is this fabulous old tree there (not this one, though this one's cool too) and the kids had a ton of fun climbing it, falling out of it, and climbing it again and again. This is us freezing and posing in front of her neat old house.


Last week was Parent Observation Day at Alayna's dance studio. Isn't she a pretty dancer?

I don't know when this was taken or why, I just thought it was cute and threw it in for good measure.

We took all the Joy School kids and their older siblings, who are off track, to Wheeler Farm on Wednesday. There is really pretty old farm house there so I had to get a pic of the kids on the porch.

I wanted to get a picture of my three cuties siting on this little bench together. Unfortunately, Eli has personal space issues and wouldn't let the other two sit down by him.

So this is what I got. Geez, kids, at least pretend like you like each other!


Last night, there was this open house thing at one of the housing developments up on the hill. The Jazz Dancers and Bear were there taking pictures and signing autographs, so I had to get Alayna in with her idols. She has wanted to be a Jazz Dancer as long as she can remember and was so smitten with these three girls. So cute!


Ah yes, the bear. One of the main reasons we went was to get a picture of Eli with the bear. We thought he'd love him. We were wrong. Eli reacted to the Bear the same way I reacted to that dead mouse in our basement. He took one look at this monster and started screaming, shaking, and all together falling apart. It didn't help that the bear began spraying us all with silly string, no, didn't help matters one bit. The bear tried to make peace by handing him a ball, but Eli wouldn't take it and just kept screaming. So, I did not manage to get a picture with Eli and the Bear. And now I know, people in furry costumes are evil in my son's eyes. I'm guessing we won't be ready for another trip to Disneyland anytime soon.