Easter!

On Easter morning, Gretel got to look and see what the Easter bunny left her in her room. She also got to do a little egg hunt in her room, with eggs hidden behind stuffed animals, etc.
Her basket was hidden behind the rocking chair ("rock rock chair" as she calls it) and she was just loving it!
In this picture she is looking at the movie Tangled, so excited to watch it! Lately she says, "I'm so excited!" about lots of things, and I just love it.



Thanks so much to Mimi, for being the Easter bunny's personal shopper-you really got Gretel SO many cool things! She was really spoiled; she got books, new dishes/bib, a backpack, clothes, a sprinkler toy for the backyard, and hair accessories. Also, we each got a big dark chocolate-covered caramel carrot. My fave!! Thank you for everything, Mom and Dad!


Her very favorite thing that she can't live without is the magnetic alphabet toy! She also loves her glittery fairy wand and new bath toys.

Johnny and I got her some books, a coloring book that uses a pen filled with water (great church toy) some crocs for the pool/beach and sand toys for the beach

I thought she'd want to shove all the jelly beans in her mouth as soon as I opened the egg for her, but she mostly just wanted to pour them from one half of the egg to the other.

The crusty look!

Thanks Mom, for her Easter frock-and also for mine!

I didn't have time to snap a picture of her hair before church, so by this point it's way messed up because she'd been hiding in all the couch pillows, her favorite hobby.

But thanks Hab for teaching me how to French braid her hair! Even though I've known how to French braid, it's seriously hard to do on a baby with their little fine hair. Hab has mad skillz when it comes to braiding-she is better and WAY faster than I am. She gave me some tips to improve my technique, which I really appreciate! When she came to visit recently, (my next blog post) she whipped out her hair talents and I couldn't believe how much I loved Gretel's hair like that! So anyway, I've been practicing.

That night we got together with a few other families for an egg hunt. It was Shauna's fam, Abby's fam, along with Abby's in-laws' families too. Lots of fun!!

Gretel's favorite friend, Avery

Her other favorite friend, Chloe

Shauna's cute boy, Jack

Shauna's awesome daughter Skyler, who I just adore!!

All 4 of Shauna's kids

After Shauna did this impromtu pose, we also decided to be silly with our baskets

Tribond: We gave ourselves that name while playing a board game called Tribond. We were beating our husbands (boys vs. girls) and the three of us put our fists in the air, touching them together in celebration, and the name stuck.

I love how silly we are when we're together.

The best part of Easter was that Johnny said he wanted to cook! So he did the honey pecan chicken, I did the scalloped potatoes, (my first time making them, which is funny because later I found out that my Dad also made scalloped potatoes that night-kindred spirits:)) and we both did the salad. It was lots of fun being in the kitchen together. It was nice and relaxing. So after dinner and the egg hunt, we came home and watched Tangled! That's all Johnny cared about doing all day long-he's been dying to watch it and wanted to give it to Gretel early, but I made him wait until Easter when she'd get it in her basket.

I definitely miss our families and wish we could do an egg hunt with cousins, and eat dinner with everyone. But I'm grateful that we have such nice friends that invite us to do fun things with them. We have spent so many holidays with our friends here, and they feel like family, so we're very lucky.

We will be seeing a lot of family in the next couple of weeks, so we're really excited. It was such a treat to have Hab and my mom come and stay. We leave in a couple of days for Johnny's sister's wedding (YAY!) and then right when we get home from that Johnny graduates (double YAY!!)

Both his parents and mine are coming for the graduation, so that will be really fun!