Modesto Quick Trip

 A few days after Easter we joined Clayton's parents for a quick trip over to Modesto for Clint and Alison's baby blessing for Peter. They lived (They just moved back to Utah last week!) right on the Stanislaw River in a beautiful yellow house. They kept chickens which the kids adored. Here is a snippet of Winston getting a bit too close. Ha ha.

Bless his heart, he wanted to touch one. I love how he just shakes it off for a minute.

Eleanor loved seeing her cousins, especially Autumn.

Their lawn was truly magical. Here are Gabe, Autumn, Natalie, Eleanor and Winston playing.

Gabe is a character.

We took a wonderful walk down to and along the river, where Winston found his true calling in life: throwing rocks.

He loooooved that.

Cutie.

Posing on the bridge.

Micah! He was such a doll, he helped me with Winston the whole way.

There is a pretty little park on the walk.

And he was just cute, so... more pictures.

Natalie and Autumn.

My soaking wet boy.

As he spent a good amount of time half in and half out.

He was killing me with all the cute, dirty, little boy-ness of it all.

Walking back home. Autumn helped Eleanor.

And Micah, bless his heart, helped and helped and helped Winston. A wiggly, almost two year old is not an easy thing to wrangle. The good news is, no one went swimming!

Back at the house, Eleanor gives Asher and Gabe some orders.

Then stops to pose, of course.

Inside, we got Winston and Asher into their matching shirts! I tried to get a shot, but made the mistake of standing in front of the tv.

 Better, once I moved to the side.

After baths. Eleanor followed the big boys, Jonah and Micah, outside in the dark and ten minutes later she came back in with about 37 bug bites. No lie, we counted. I guess she just tastes delicious.

Family scripture study, I love how Win is looking at Jonah and Gabe is barely being restrained by Grandma Kathy.

The blessed baby, Peter.

Who is the cutest, happiest little guy!

I am sad they moved from their picturesque home on the river, but am thrilled to have them back in the state so we can see all these cuties more often!

Easter 2013

Easter was lovely this year. We all went to Tom and Jenni's house for dinner after church and an egg hunt. I was determined to have a fun one for the kids since the BYU one turned out to be a bit of a wash. Winston was adorable in his new bow-tie I made him. He kept it on all day!

Eleanor wasn't as competitive as I thought she'd be. She was more than happy to pose for pictures while she collected neat rocks and pretty leaves.

Winston was a typical one year old. Find a candy, call it a day. He had no motivation to collect more than two eggs at a time.

Rosaline's first egg hunt! So stinking cute! She had just turned one the month before.

Hello, pixie!

Mouth full, hunt over.

Cute Allie actually found some of the harder ones.

Even with Abby's help, Winston wasn't much for searching.

Trampoline!

Sweet air!

I hid three "golden" eggs for the adults to find that had corresponding "big-kid" treats. Well, just whole bags of candy. It was hilarious how excitedly everyone looked for these. So much fun. I will so be doing this every year. So our three winners were Megan, Shane and Clayton. Actually, that should be Megan, Megan and Clayton, as Megan found two of the three. Go Mims!

 The guys were playing bocce, and Winston was trying his best to keep up with them. He is the tiny blue and beige dot in between Clayton and Shane.

 Megan and Shane recently got baby chickens, so they ran home and brought them back for everyone to see. The kids were over the moon excited about that.

How sweet is her face?!

She renamed them, and then proceeded to talk about them all month long.

Allie and Jasmine, or whatever they were named.

He heee! Holding it on her own!

This made my Easter, not sure about you.

And a small clip of Winston, nearly squashing the baby chicks and Jenni making the save of the year!

BYU Easter Egg Hunt 2013

A few days before Easter, BYU held a free egg hunt. Tom got us tickets and we made our way over as a family. They had giant bouncy slides, crafts, giant animals (mascots) and three separate egg hunts for three age groups. It was quite an event!

E loved the giant bouncy slides. There is a huge obstacle course portion behind this part. As I dropped her off at the start she would tell whichever kid was next to her that they were racing and just go for it. Whether they lapped her or she beat them by a mile, she would turn to whatever kid was next to her at the end and claim, "I won!"

Always ready to pose.

My boys.

Tom and Allie!

Allie's cousins Anna and Ellie came too.

The egg hunt ended up being a disaster. Some kid jumped the gun about 15 minutes early and everyone just mobbed the hunt. If you were even two minutes behind, too bad. Allie got some and E got a few, but tons of kids got diddly squat. Winston walked around collecting broken eggs. Eh, he doesn't know what he is missing. The 3 and under hunt was still preserved so we tried for him to do that one, but he got antsy waiting for the gun to sound, so I gave up our spot at the front to let him play at the back. When the gun sounded, we walked behind the giant throng onto the field and we may as well have been following a vacuum cleaner. The grass was spotless! Some poor man next to me was in a wheel chair with his one year old on his lap. There was no way on earth he could have gotten a single jelly bean. We just shrugged our shoulders and headed back to the car.

 Look at what adorable cousin shared her eggs. She ended up sharing her eggs with several other kids on her way out. What a doll!

 

 Which made E happy.

Our attempt at a family shot. Ugh. E's not looking and Win was done and done.

We went down one more slide on our way out.

And I took Win down one. I think he liked it.