Easter 2016

Easter this year was a lot of fun!  This was the first year that the kids at least sort of understood what was going on.  We bought a book about the real Easter story (from the Bible, not about the bunny) that helped them understand at least a bit of what the season is all about.  I put up a few simple decorations and we did a few Easter activities like dying Easter eggs and painting some Easter crosses.  We did Easter eggs two ways, with the traditional dye kit from the store and then we tried the whipped cream method which was a lot of fun!  I think in the future that we will just go with the whipped cream technique because it made such beautiful eggs and I didn't have to worry about my little mess makers putting it in their mouths.

On Easter, we did an egg hunt that was pretty darn funny.  Grayson kept running to the eggs (they had fruit snacks and jelly beans in most of them with a few reese's thrown in) and trying to take the candy out of each one as he went.  He didn't seem to understand the concept of putting the eggs in the basket and checking out his candy at the end.  Clare just tried to pick up as many eggs as she could at once.  Her max was three at a time but she sure tried to get more!  The kids also had Easter baskets with a few extra treats in them.  I tried to keep things simple and keep the focus on Christ instead of getting lots of presents but I'm sure the candy was their favorite part at this age.

After our egg hunt, we got ready for church and then had a lovely service at Scottsdale Bible Church.  I am so grateful that we have found a good church that we love out here!  The kids did another little egg hunt in their classes and Grayson told us a million times that he couldn't pick up the pink eggs, just the other colors :)

After church, we went to Julian's parents house for a nice Easter lunch and family time.  It's so fun to be able to spend holidays with family now that we are back in Phoenix!  The kids had a great time with their grandparents :)

Payson Vacation

To celebrate Julian's 30th birthday this year, I decided to surprise him with a weekend getaway to Payson to enjoy the mountains and a change of scenery from Phoenix.  I wanted to do something fun as a family and I knew that Julian wouldn't want a party so a nice cabin in the woods sounded perfect. We drove up to Payson (about an hour and a half away) and we celebrated with some delicious Nothing Bundt Cake bundlettes (basically cupcakes).  The kids were huge moochers while Julian was trying to enjoy his dessert :)

The next day we decided to go to the Tonto Natural Bridge, which is a beautiful naturally formed travertine bridge that you can hike down to.  The hike was beautiful though it was pretty steep, which wasn't the easiest with Clare strapped to my back and Grayson riding on Julian's shoulders.  Grayson is obsessed with maps so he spent a lot of time trying to be our little navigator.  We kept asking him to tell us what he saw and asking if he saw the trees, rocks, etc.  His response was to keep his nose in the map and talk about the compass :)

Once we got to the bottom and he could safely run around, he finally started paying attention to his surroundings.  He was trying to skip rocks, run across a bridge, check out the stream, and really just run everywhere.

Clare fell asleep in the Ergo on our hike back up.  It was really cool to see such a beautiful natural structure!

We also spent time near the stream that was across from the house and it was really cute to watch Grayson and Julian exploring together!  I absolutely love watching my boys bond!  Clare really wanted to chase them but with the uneven, rocky terrain, she was struggling to keep up.  We had such a nice relaxing trip and we were so happy to be able to celebrate a great husband and father!