Babysit swaps

We are generally excited about our move next month, but we are very very sad that we will not live as close to some wonderful friends!  We will still see them, but we will miss seeing them several times a week, and we will miss our weekly babysit swaps.  Not only has it been nice for the parents, but the kids have a legitimately fun time as well!  It is so fun to see how big they've gotten over the past year or so and see them all playing together.  Here are some pics from this last Saturday!

We have a blast with these cute kids!

Marathoning

No. Don't worry. No one here has ever come anywhere close to running a marathon.  But here in Boston we get the third Monday in April off each year for Patriot's Day.  It is a wonderful state holiday that commemorates the battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19th, 1775.  There are lots of little reenactments and parades, in addition to the Boston Marathon and a home Red Sox game.  So this year we went down to a park in Wellesley to cheer on the runners and have some fun!

It got into the upper 80's on Monday!  As it's usually only in the 50's or 60's, it was a tough haul for a lot of the runners. 

Alan called it "the chase" and he'll tell you all about how the runners ran all the way to Boston.  He did a good job clapping and cheering them on.

But ultimately, the park won out.

And here is a view of the marathon from the park.

Later that day we took a walk for Family Home Evening to get a special treat.

Pizzi's farm has opened up their ice cream stand for the season, and you just don't want to miss out on this.

It was the perfect end to a fun Patriot's Day!  

And while we're still not marathoners, it did inspire me to go running the next day. Go me. :)

Easter with Family

Alan had a lot of fun preparing for Easter this year.  Here he is setting up some of the decorations. 

And, not really an Easter pic, but I had to put it up. This guy loves the sand box. He's not able to climb out of it yet, so it is nice to be able to keep him somewhat contained when we're outside.

We also dyed eggs over at Aunt Sarah and Uncle Michael's house.

Sarah and James

Alan was quite proud of all of his eggs.  Even the ones he left in the dye for all of 2 seconds.

And James thought it would be best to eat the eggs, and then without fail, drop them on the floor.

And the boys have such nice grandparents that sent them so much candy that their parents didn't have to buy any at all. :)  This is a package from Grandma and Grandpa Foulk

And we got Alan opening the present from Grandma and Grandpa Robertson on video.  Classic Alan.

We told the story of the Resurrection on Easter morning with the boys before we went to find eggs.  In fact we did it several days the previous week after the first telling at Family Home Evening on Monday.  I had cut out the pictures from the nursery manual, and Alan just loved retelling the story of the Resurrection. 

Easter Morning!  Someone is pretty excited!

Ok, they both were pretty excited. :)

Alan is a professional egg finder these days.  He very quickly found all of the eggs.

And even though the Easter bunny left some low, easy to find eggs, James had a tough time getting some for himself.  But he was pretty determined, and managed to snag a few.

We found all the eggs!

Then it was on to the Easter baskets.

Here you go, James!

Time for the candy. :)

We also had Sarah and Michael, along with Sarah's sister's family, and others over for Easter dinner.   Here's Uncle Michael and some of his nephews with the bunny cake that they made! 

Easter with Friends

We had so much success with the Valentine's Day party that we decided to have another tri-ward playgroup event... an Easter Egg Hunt!  It was much less work (thankfully), and we just played outside with bubbles and sidewalk chalk, had a little Easter parade, then the egg hunt and picnic.  It turned out to be a beautiful day and the kids and moms had a lot of fun!

Violet and Alan in their bunny ears.

We had each egg-hunting child bring a dozen filled eggs.  I'd guess there were between five and six hundred eggs in that basket.   And then we got to hide them. :) 

We let the youngest kids go first, and Alan got to lead the way for his group.

James loved it too, even though he wasn't an official participant. 

Towards the beginning Alan picked up an egg and he shook it and it didn't seem like there was anything in it.  So he opened it and saw it had a sticker.  He put it back.  And he shook and listened to each egg that he picked up after that, and only took the ones which sounded like a ample supply of candy.  No dummy. :) Needless to say we ended up with a lot of jelly beans.

James on the hunt again.

And of course James was very interested in seeing all of Alan's fares

I had to take Alan's basket away before he downed the whole bucket before lunch.

Then we spread out our blankets and had a fun picnic

The whole thing tuckered little Jamesy right out

And what's better than playing with snakes

and climbing trees?  It was a very fun morning!

The next day we went with some more friends to the Palkki's house to dye Easter eggs together.

The kids loved it and we ended up with a good many beautiful eggs!

It was so fun to celebrate Easter with our friends!  We will sure miss them when we move, but thankfully we won't be too far, and will be able to come back for future parties. :)

Whirlwind NJ Weekend

We went down to New Jersey for a quick trip last weekend and crammed so much into one visit!  Evan turned 8 at the beginning of March, but waited to get baptized until the end of the month so that we could see both the baptism and Megan in her school musical.  It happened to be conference weekend as well. We had a blast and loved spending time with family!  

We left on Thursday evening a little after 4.  I'm not sure why, but there was no traffic at all and we made it there in record time.  The boys were great on the trip.  By far the most exciting thing to Alan was seeing the George Washington Bridge.  He kept asking about it until we got there, and then loved it.  He was so surprised to see water as well. Go figure :)  He still frequently asks if a bridge we pass over is the George Washington Bridge.  So that combined with watching all the airplanes come into the Newark Airport and continual listening to the Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer soundtrack kept a little boy happy for the whole drive.  (picture from Sorens at en.wikipedia)

Here's Meg after one of her performances of Aida.  We absolutely loved the musical!  Seneca did a great job and the music in the play is amazing!  Elton John and Tim Rice scored again.

We got to see Sarah as Aida and Meg was a Nubian slave

Some more cast shots

And Evan wanted pictures with the cast as well

Us with Meg after another performance. We saw the play on different nights so that people could babysit the boys. :)

And before we get any further, we must let it be known that this little guy can no longer be stopped.  He's been scooting and rolling his way around for some time now, but now he is crawling, and he moves quick!  Since Alan never really crawled until right before he started walking, this is new territory for us, and it is just a little bit frightening.  

Here's Evan in his baseball gear.  His game on Saturday got canceled due to rain, so we didn't get to see him play.  He did have the opening ceremonies, and we are thankful that this year he does play for the Phils, not the Yankees.

We loved watching General Conference and feel truly blessed to hear from a prophet and apostles.

And while we tried to listen intently, some of the 8 hours was spent like this

and like this, but we are grateful to have it online and read the Ensign to catch up on the parts we missed. :)

Here's Great Grandma and Jamesy

We were thrilled that we got to be there for Evan's baptism.  We are so proud of him!

A great picture of Grandma Foulk and Evan

Alan asked if the font would be like a waterfall, but we told him it was like a big bathtub.  He was kinda scared of it.  Thankfully he has a few years.  He also kept confusing the ordinances of baptism and marriage. ?? We're really not sure why.  He keeps telling everyone that Uncle Evan got married, and that he doesn't want to get married. 

Evan even asked Scott to give the talk on baptism and me to give the talk on the Holy Ghost.  

Proud parents and son

And Alan had to pose for a picture too.

The family after the baptism

Meg got these cute matching shirts for the little guys.  If you ask Alan what his shirt says, he'll tell you.  "I Love Aunt Meg."  Haha.

We also brought Evan his belated birthday gifts, which I think he and Alan enjoyed. :)

And since it was my grandma's birthday a couple of days after our visit, we celebrated her birthday as well with a combined cake.

It was a quick trip and a lot of excitement!  We were glad to be able to come down for these fun events and love spending time with family.