Pinstack Bowling with Aunt Mary

We were so excited to hear Aunt Mary is in town this weekend! She wanted to spend an evening bowling and playing games at Pinstack Bowling and the kids were thrilled to be included. I had previous plans with Liz, Jenna, Sereen and Lanae to meet for dinner at Cheesecake Factory and the movie Me Before You. Thankfully I was able to meet them for a delicious dinner and then head over to catch up with the rest of my family. Derek, Bryce and Clara were having a blast running from game to game and all over the arcade portion of the building. Mitchell, Tyler, Andrew and I dominated a couple games of Lasertag. At one point, Bryce snuck off with Aunt Amy and Danny to get some food and he was in heaven having a whole plate of chicken strips and fries to himself, as well as the undivided attention of Aunt "Mamie" and Danny. ;) It was great to see Aunt Mary; Val; Aunt Veronica and Andrew; Aunt Jenn, Uncle Tim, Dillon, Tyler and Ally; Beth, Declan and Jilli; and Gamm and Papa. I think I just missed my mom, but we had a lot of fun hanging out with family and playing games together. Clara turned out to be kind of a good luck charm for Gamm and Aunt Mary at one of the games, Derek scored 500 tickets in a single round of a game, and Bryce was obsessed with the Transformers game. At the end of the night, Aunt Mary took all the kids, (Derek, Bryce, Clara, Declan, Jilli, Ally, Tyler and Andrew) into the prize room to pick out prizes. Altogether, I think we scored over 13,000 tickets! It was a super fun (super late!) night with my family. :)

 Derek loved playing this giant Connect 4 game

 Clara's great-grandma and great-great aunt ADORE her. 

 My lovely sister, Val and my lovely Aunt Jenn!!

 Derek, Ally and Dillon had fun playing this game together

 Mitchell was Phaser 22, I was Phaser 28, Andrew was Phaser 26 and Tyler was Phaser 33. Blue team for the win!

 Bryce loves Danny, Aunt "Mamie" and food. Triple score!! :D

 Who knew fishing was such intense work?!

 Derek's face when he got the biggest fish, haha!

 Mitchell helped the kids with another fishing game

 Aunt Mary, Gamm and I!

 Derek and Bryce loooooved playing this Ghostbusters game. They shot ping pong balls at ghosts.

 Bryce, Aunt Mary, Clara and Derek! :D

 Clara and Bryce took out the Decepticons on the Transformers Game. Mitchell eventually jumped in to help them out.

 Papa kept his eye on Bryce while he perched on the rotating entrance wheel

 Papa, Bryce and Danny

Bryce loves Hulk

Christmas at Gamm's

Amy, Val and I took the kids to do Christmas at Gamm's house last night. It was a pretty quiet drive. :) My cousins Jeff, John and Beth were there as well as their mom, my Great Aunt Kathy and Aunt Jenn and Uncle Tim were there with Ally and Tyler. My Uncle Tom was there too! There were lots of great finger foods that Gamm made and, between the toys and cousins, Derek was pretty well entertained. Bryce was happy to interact with anyone and Clara was an immediate magnet, haha! I spent most of my time talking with adults, which was a great Christmas present in and of itself. Thanks for watching the kids, Amy!

 

Gamm gave Derek and Bryce each a present and they ripped into it with gusto. I wish I had recoded Derek's reaction when he realized that he unwrapped a big stegosaurus. It was so cute! Bryce unwrapped a Thomas train with a bee car that really buzzes. It's compatible with the wooden train tracks they got for Christmas, too. It was a great visit.

 

 No wonder it was a really quiet drive. :)

 

 Rob and Val. Aren't they cute?

 

 Bryce made himself right at home traipsing all over the house

 

 Derek and Declan played so well tonight! They were both sharing cars with each other and playing very nicely.

 

 My beautiful cousin, Beth!

 

 Ally and Tyler were scoping out all the presents

 

 It was so good to see Andrew! I can't remember the last time I saw him. Amy was such a trooper to feed Bryce. He loved the meatballs and ham.

 

 Jillian is growing up so fast! She and Derek are about two years apart and roughly the same size.

 

John was one of the first to requisition Clara, haha! Gamm gave her this adorable little dress with some cute sock shoes and her first pair of tights!



 Derek's "sloth slur" is so cute. When he opened the box, he yelled, "Oh wow! A Shtegoshaurush!" We're still working on his S sound, but it's cute nonetheless.

 

 Jeff had just gotten to hold Clara when she decided she was hungry, so he was the first to hold her after she was fed. We met his girlfriend, Kellie, tonight and she's really nice.

 

 Bryce happily toddled over to John and climbed, unsolicited, up into his lap. He's such a friendly little kid.

 

Gamm finally got her hands on the little ball of pink lace.



Bryce loved all the different toys - particularly this phone...



...and this doll. He patted this doll and carried it around for a while before he moved on to another toy. It just reminds me to keep a close eye on him when he's around Clara. Just til she's a little bigger.

Gamm and Papa Meet Clara

Gamm and Papa braved the ice leftover from the storm last weekend to come see Clara today. They even brought chicken pasta and a yummy berry cobbler. Derek dove into the cobbler almost immediately and Bryce followed suit when he saw Derek eating, lol. Never one to be left out. Clara was very cute and it was nice to catch up with my grandparents. I'm glad they finally got to meet Clara!

 

 Bryce was showing off his climbing tricks

 

 Bryce and Papa

 

 Gamm and Clara

 

Sweet girl!

 

 Derek gobbled the cobbler

 

 Kind of scary when Bryce says "Cheese" with berries on his face, haha!

Easter

We celebrated Easter with my Gamm and Papa this year. We've missed the massive Easter Egg Hunt for the last several years, so it was high time for us to make a reappearance. ;) We had so much fun! Gamm made tons of sweet things to eat (including white chocolate covered jelly beans - YUM!) and all the kids had to trek through the house to find their Easter baskets. Derek found Bryce's first and happily ran over to him saying, "Bryce, Bryce, look! Your basket!" Derek was thrilled to discover bubbles, a monster truck, a set of three cars, a candy-pooping cow toy and the most exciting thing ever - chocolate! - in his basket. Bryce was fascinated with his stuffed Horton elephant and the little stuffed bunny Nana gave him and very content to be in Tia Rosa's lap (she held him pretty much the whole time. Thanks Tia Rosa!). We even gave him some frosting, but apparently it wasn't as good as the St. Patty's Day icing. Lol! Papa went all out this year and hid over 400 eggs in his front and back yard. They don't have a huge plot so the minute we walked out, there were eggs EVERYWHERE! It was so cool! Derek had a blast hunting for eggs and finding all different shapes and sizes. I think his favorites were the frog egg, the baseball egg and the camo egg that he found on the fountain. I found the traditional $5 egg this year for only the second time in my life! ;) It was hidden in some leaf litter under the camo egg on the fountain. I thought it looked a little funky, haha! With the addition of my $5, Derek found a modest stash of a little over $15. All the eggs had nickels, dimes and the occasional quarter in them. There were also ten eggs that had a dollar bill in them. I think Derek found a couple of those. It was neat to teach Derek about counting and money. We'll do an FHE about tithing next week and let Derek give his first tithing slip to the bishop. He's already excited about it. Check out some of the pictures of these kids huntin' eggs!

 Opening his basket

 You can't see his mouth very well, but it was an "O" - he was so excited to find chocolate!

 Hi from Bryce!

 Nom nom nom!

 Tyler got a cool prank set in his basket. We had a lot of fun with this beauty. ;)

 The starting line... Ally, Tyler, Derek, Bryce, Declan and Jilli

 The girls were paying attention, lol

 Just a sample. So many eggs!

 Even Bryce got in on the egg-action!

 Tyler found the first jelly bean egg

 Derek's camo egg - the $5 egg was in the leaves underneath. Traditionally, it's the smallest egg, not much bigger than a couple inches.

He missed the one right in front of his face to go for the orange one in the back. Typical Derek. ;)

 Huntin' Eggs!

 Derek wasn't sure this was an egg at first.

 Papa helped Derek find some of the more disguised eggs in the big bush

 An egg that wishes it was a baseball

How many eggs can YOU find?