Reid and Stefani Adopt

One of Esther's kindred spirits had a birthday party the Saturday before Easter.  Esther's friend wanted a "Frozen" themed birthday party, so her mother decided to take the kids ice-skating.  This sounded like so much fun that I invited myself and the rest of my family to come along.  When I was asking for permission to bring my family, Angela, the birthday girl, said it would be okay if Isaac came only if he dressed up as Olaf.  She was dressing up as Elsa, and Esther played Anna, and Angela's older sister, Natalie, was dressed as Sven.   After the iceskating adventure was over, we went to the park for cake and presents.  I couldn't help adding the above picture of Reid trying to tune Angela's new plastic Disney Frozen Ukulele.

I'm lucky to have had my father-in-law with us this past Easter weekend.  He remembered to take photos, as I knew he would.  Every year, the kids meet with a few friends from church and we do an egg hunt the Saturday before Easter Sunday.  Isaac and Esther are old enough to have Easter expectations now.  The pressure is on the Easter bunny to perform.   The group.  I think if must have been the dads' (and one grandpa's) official jobs take the photos.  Esther and Daddy. I love that she's wearing a long sleeved snowflake shirt and shorts. Isaac's haul included glow sticks! On the Friday before Easter, we got egged.  Luckily in our nice suburban neighborhood, that means some mysterious do-gooder hid eggs around the front yard unbeknownst to us and then rang the door bell, and ran.  They left an Easter basket and a note, letting us know we'd been "egged" and that we should look for hidden eggs on the premises.  One ...

Spring Break was a little wild.  The first part of the week Reid still had to work, and we all got sick.  So then Reid didn't work and we kind of hung out at home.  Then we decided to pull ourselves up by the bootstrap and go camping.  It was the one thing the kids had to look forward to during Spring Break.  I worked hard the night before making little merit badges they could earn in the woods to get them excited about going.  Reid packed the car and planned all the meals.  (He was really fabulous.)  Then off we went to Highland Hammock State Park.  The kids had fun playing in the leaves and continuously cycling around the camp loop on their bikes.  We went hiking and they learned to identify some basic plants, one being poison ivy.  They spotted a woodpecker and a cardinal.  They learned a few fire safety rules, bike safety rules, and cooked their own bratwurst on a stick.  It was a good time, even if the nights got a l...