Happy Easter weekend!!

Today we said goodbye to my parents and Trav & family who came over for Easter weekend. It's funny to think that a year ago, Easter was a little different as both sets of grandparents were in town to welcome Talia's arrival. Although we were hoping for an Easter arrival (April 8th-my grandma's birthday), we already had her birthday planned for the 10th of April.

Fast forward a year and Easter was a little busier this time! We had 8 adults, 5 kids and 4 dogs all under one roof (more on that later :). Good thing our house is (almost!) big enough to house everyone pretty comfortably! It was a packed and exciting weekend. It's always fun with fam in town!

Easter weekend started with happy hour at one of the many great breweries in Bend with Grama and Papa as we waited for the Danners to arrive. Talia once again loved making friends at the restaurant. I'm noticing that she loves the attention and tries to make eye contact and do her shy smile at anyone who is around her. She is little miss social for sure!


Yes, Tristan is back to wearing beanie hats when we go out. He is in desperate need of a haircut.

And then on Saturday, we went to a large Easter carnival put on by a local church. Coincidentally, my mom found out that the pastor of this church was someone she grew up with. They hadn't seen each other in close to 30 years so it was fun to see them reconnect!

All the kids ready to go!

Easter outfit #1 :) Cannot believe how big she is getting!

Sharing his cone with Grama :)


All the kids making a run for the candy. Tristan didn't want to go in his age group since none of his cousins would be with him. Love how Lincoln helped him out as all the big kids were fighting for candy around him.



Since we were blessed with such beautiful weather Easter weekend, we were able to play outside most of the day. The boys set up corn hole outside as the rest of us soaked up some much-needed Vitamin D.

Love this pic of Talia & Stella watching all the action

Trying to get a sibling pic is hard work. I had to settle for this one.

And trying to get all three boys in one place, looking at me...also a challenge. I did my best with this one.

Yes, we look a little WT here, but we are still in the middle of fertilizing our backyard to get it ready for the summer. And, honestly, most of our neighbors also hang out in their front yards whenever the temperature climbs above 60 degrees so that they can watch their kids cruise up and down the street. What a difference from our last neighborhood when no one came outside and we had only seen some of our neighbors a few times in six+ years!!


Decorating Easter eggs!



And then on Easter, we woke up to find our Easter baskets from the Easter bunny and then had an outdoor egg hunt after church. Since the fam was all leaving in the early afternoon, we had to cram in as much as possible before they left. No surprises there :)


I SO love Talia's Easter dress!! When you think Easter, you think flapper girl, right?

Trying to spy on the location of all the Easter eggs :)

All the boys ready to go!


An attempt at a pic of Grama with her little ones. Not sure giving Tristan a blue sucker while trying to take Easter pics was such a great idea. All the pics I have of him either have blue teeth or chocolate stuck in them. Next year, pics will come before candy!



Yes, I have a lot of pics of mostly Talia, but my mom and I were trying to capture the perfect picture of her in all her Easter flapper glory. A little hard to do with a moving little one, but we got some pretty good ones!


And then after all our guests left, we went out for an Easter dinner at St. Francis. Such a great ending to our fun weekend!

Longest.Week.Ever.

We are just coming off of our longest.week.ever.seriously. Brian left last Sunday for a week-long business trip. This is only the second time he has been gone since having two kids. The first time was when Talia was only four months old, so it was a little easier to handle since she did a lot more sleeping then. Now, I have a very active almost-one year old and a pretty busy two year old. So, it's safe to say that it's pretty busy during the day around here. I long for my one hour I have a night where Brian takes over so that I can work out, shower, change out some laundry or start dinner. Pretty exciting stuff, I know. But since he was gone, I didn't get that hour. And it was hard. Oh, and did I mention that both my kids are not good with going to bed and sleeping? Oh ya, then there's that. Poor Tristan gets night terrors from time to time. And Talia still wakes up a few times at night. I don't know how moms who have traveling/military husbands do it. I barely survived the week with an average of 4-5 hours of interrupted sleep.

Okay, enough of the whining, there was some fun in there, too. We needed some fun (and caffeine!) to make the long days go by faster. We started the week by celebrating St. Patrick's Day. I decided to make corned beef and cabbage for the first time, and have to say that it turned out pretty good! This will definitely be a tradition in the years ahead. Although next year I may try shepherd's pie. I didn't get any significant pictures on this holiday, but both kids wore green so that they wouldn't get pinched from big cousin Emma!

The next day, Tristan, Eli, Talia and I went on a 3 1/2 hour walk/bike ride. We rode down to the neighborhood coffee shop for a treat and coffee, then ended the ride with a trip to the park. It ended up being a 3 1/2 mile bike ride! It's safe to say that Tristan and Talia were a bit wiped out at the end of the afternoon and took super long naps. Score for mom!


The last part of the week, Michelle and I spent the majority of our free time (ha!) getting ready for her cousin, Sammie's baby shower.

The beginning of the cookies I made for the shower - only 30 more to go!
Michelle has spent months planning and went above and beyond with the decorations - it was amazing! Brian got home late on Friday night and took over daddy duty with Tristan while Michelle, Emma, Talia and I got up a few hours before dawn on Saturday to drive to The Dalles to set up for the shower. What a wonderful day!







Sorry for so many pics, but there were too many amazing decorations and I had to share them all! As you can see, it was an owl theme and Michelle went all out! There were many comments that she needs to open her own business and I couldn't agree more!


My only contributions were writing on this sign and making these cookies. They were super fun to do!






Cousins Emma & Talia!

More cousins! Actually, they are considered third cousins, as these are the daughters of Michelle's cousin, Stefani.

The beautiful mama-to-be!



Sammie's dog, Madison, thinking all the new stuffed animals were for her. Uh oh.

The amazing quilt Sammie's cousin made for the new "Baby T" (they are not finding out the sex or disclosing name choices). The T in the center is from one of their grandma's pillows, as she also had a last name that started with T. Pretty special :)

What an amazing day! And a great end to a very long week.