Easter!! Finally... :)

It was Easter, and so I made these delicious sugar cookies:



OK, NOT...more like these delicious sugar cookies. I wish they were pretty but whataya do? That's why I make cupcakes generally...they're very easy to make look good.


Easter with the Pace's/Taylor's:

First, some cute pictures of Anya...







With her cousin, Lexi

And there's the old man...uh, Grandpa Taylor ;)... helping the kids find eggs. Grandma and Grandpa Taylor are professional egg-hiders. They have to help ME find eggs. But then again, I'm totally pathetic at it. Most years, they lose a few eggs because no one remembers where they hid them and none of the hunters can find them either. ps. he was really wishing he was in Cancun that day, for SURE.





Cousin Sam-o :)

And Ava

Partners in crime:

Other partners in crime...

Sam ONLY got little beauty for Easter... Claire totally got something just as amazing...drumroll....

As much as we hate buying her toys because she already has so many (from the woman in the picture below this sentence, actually...) we got her the Ariel one of these. It's for the bath, so it's not something she'll throw into the toy chest and forget about. It stays in the bath and she loves it!

Ruth's Annual Easter Party!

Stole these pics from Heather's blog...I'd forgotten my camera... Here's Claire and Lauren eating pure sugar! Love it! Claire was excited to have "Spicy apple juice." "Spicy" is her word for soda pop, and they had Manzanita Sol...yummm.... the Mexican equivalent of Apple Beer. Lauren joined in on wanting some of that nectar of the gods, much to Jay's chagrin...they don't like to make her happy with delicious sugary food like I do :)

Hunting for eggs!!

So apparently, with the first egg Claire found, she promptly grabbed it, threw it back on the ground, and then stomped on it til it broke into pieces. Then she removed the candy. Ha!

Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt:







It was a great Easter!

Easter Dress

SO, now that I have my new sewing machine, I've been going crazy with sewing projects! I love it!! And I'm getting way better at sewing...to the point that I've finally made some apparel-items I wouldn't mind anyone wearing in public.

Drumroll:

Ta da!!!!!!!!


And there she is showing it off with her signature Chuckie smile!

Now, I have to say that I TOOK these pictures with Jordan's fancy camera. So, basically there were a LOT of out focus pictures. Mainly because I have no idea how to use his camera, and then I had issues taking pictures of a squirmy 2-yr old (go figure, right?)









So I actually made TWO super cute coordinating Easter dresses. But Anya's was off the second church got out, so I only got pictures of Claire. But I'm obsessed with how adorable they turned out, actually. To the point that I even forced...ok...helped...some of my friends make them for their girls for Easter too :) I want to show off and say they were soooo hard, but they're not, let's be honest here :)This is me we're talking about!







Oh, funny about when I was pinning the pattern pieces to the fabric... Claire comes up and says "I do ouchies" and she started jabbing pins into the pattern pieces haha. She was calling the pins "ouchies" because we always say "oh, don't touch those, they're ouchie!" LOL.

Easter with the Gollahers

So I didn't take hardly any pictures--just this. Pathetic, I know... sorry. We had a WONDERFUL dinner with Mainha & Painho, and the Colemans and Barnums. It was really fun to see everyone and have some yummy scalloped potatoes, rolls, spiral ham and Heather's amazing carrot cake! Ok, I can tell that I'm hungry as I write this...

Claire is now known (according to my parents and Heather) as the one who always wears bows, flowers, and headbands... I guess that's okay... I'm training her, so she doesn't pull them out later on! I finished this bow before church that day--had to have SOMETHING to go with the cute dress! And for Easter, of course!

We topped the day off with Claire talking to my parents. It was so cute. Next post I will have a video her talking...very fun.

Easter with the Taylors

Easter SATURDAY was with Jordan's family. We had a lot of fun eating good food (these amazing marinated shish kabobs and pina colada cake) and hunting for eggs. Each year, the Taylors have an Easter egg hunt for the kids (jelly beans, chocolate), but then one for the adults (jelly beans, chocolate, DOLLAR BILLS) :) This year was a bit of a lean year for Jordan and me, in the hunt.... we made out with a whole....DOLLAR :) In previous years, it's been more like $45! But hey, we are a dollar richer! (until I go to the vending machine, that is...)

OK another picture of us trying to get everyone in and smiling... This is Jordan's sister, Jessica with Ava, Samuel, and Claire

This one turned out a little better--a little easier!

Ava's sister, Lexi, with Claire

Claire with Jordan's cousin, Julie

Jordan and Ava--very cute, I must say!

Lenore, Jordan's sister, Katie, his cousin Kiersten, and Jordan's Dad with a jello jiggler coming out of his mouth. Nice, Dan. Nice....

Jordan with his longtime friend from High School, Josh

Me decorating Easter eggs!!

Jordan and I got an Easter basket, and this is what I did with the glow sticks we got.... (we also got play doh and a frisbee...we live in Never Never Land on Easter with the Taylors!)

Easter Dinner with the Taylors

Lots of family stuff happening! Sunday afternoon we spent time at Lenore & Dan's house. It was great... Jenn and her family was over...Ava is just getting cuter and cuter! She is so sweet too! Dan made his famous dutch oven chicken and potatoes, and we had coconut pineapple cake and the kids all participated in an easter on we had dinner at egg hunt. I must say, the Taylors are GREAT at hiding easter eggs. They are SO hard to find. I'm terrible at it--and that sucks at their house because last year, they had like $200 dollars in

the eggs... let's just say the only reason we made any money was

because Jordan is good at finding things... :) But this year, it was just

for the kids, and even though it was SO cold outside, they were very excited to find those eggs! I wrapped myself up in a blanket and was still cold, so I just went back inside. Then, we took all these wonderful pictures....love the one of Jen's family--I just made sure Jen looked good :)