Easter weekend

Now that the dust has settled I can share with everyone about our Easter weekend. It's been a long a crazy week leading up to Easter, at least for mommy that is. Our church did some major up grades to its sounds and lights and even the stage got a bit of a face lift. I work the lights for our church. So with new lights installed and Easter fast approaching I had the fun task of getting them all programed into our services. We have 4 services for our church, 3 of which are at the main campus. So when I say Easter weekend, I really do mean it was a weekend. We were at church Saturday afternoon for hot dogs and the Easter service, then again on Sunday morning, at least Ella and I, for the other 2 services. Once I was done with my church duties, we had a nice Easter dinner with Grandma and Papa. They drove down just for the day and we had a lovely time. We had a simple, but elegant dinner of ham, asparagus, deviled eggs and carrot cake. Ella got a zhu zhu pet, a new quilt, and clothes from her grandparent. The Easter bunny brought her two veggie tale dvd's, some bath tub flash cards, and a plush puppy.

Snuggling under her new quilt made by grandma with her new zhu zhu pet and puppy

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of Ella in her Easter dress or of her Easter basket. With all the craziness at church, I just didn't have the time to take pictures before church. I was going to do it after church, but then Ella fell and hit her cheek and got a nice bruise, so I didn't want to get pictures of her all banged up. I did, however, get pictures of her dying eggs. This year was the first year we dyed eggs and Ella did a great job. She told me when the tablets stopped fizzing so I could add the water and she told me which egg should go into which color. She also seemed to know when it was just the right time to take the eggs out and put more in. She did a great job of not making a mess and the only spill we had was at the end and no damage was done to any clothing. So here are some pictures that we have of our Easter.

The Bike

We just had our Just Between Friends sale, it's the best place to buy things for kids without spending an arm and a leg. It's a giant consignment sale. People sell their stuff and other people can buy it for a good price. Everything is used, but it's the best way to get hand me down items. This year I volunteered at the sale, because I ran out of things to sell. Volunteers get to shop first at the sale and I worked the volunteer sale, so I got to see everything before the sale opened.

My main goal was to get Ella a bike. We figured a bike would be a good 6 months birthday present (can't believe she is going to be 2 1/2 soon).  She is at that age where she is ready to learn how to ride a bike, also she ogles over them every where we go.  If we are at the store or the park and sees them, she wants one. We took her to Walmart just to look at bikes and too see what size of bike she could ride and to test out how well she would do. She did great, but she only wanted the pretty pink princess bikes. Lucky for her I got the last princess bike at the sale for well under what a new one costs.

So far she is doing great. She never had a trike so this is all new to her. She starting to get the hang of the pedaling thing, we just need more sunny weather to practice. She has been going on the patio and practicing there, and she can get three rations in before she has to be turned around, which is pretty good for just learning. She does a great job of getting on and off the bike, and of course, she has the horn honking down real well.  Here are some pictures of her on her new bike.

Daddy showing her how to pedal

That is a happy girl

Spring Break Fun

It is finally starting to feel like spring around here. Which is a good thing, because the cousins come down during their spring break for some fun...ok, a lot of fun! They came down and spent the night and boy did they have fun with that. The kids love playing together and picking on each other, you would think they were more like siblings than cousins who hardly see each other. Then at bed time they all had to get in the hide-a-bed and be silly during story time.

The next day we took the boys to Canon City to see the Dinosaur Depot Museum. I guess at one point it use to be the depot for the Royal Gorge train, but now it's a dino museum. It's a very small, but cute museum. It is just perfect for little kids, and it is supper affordable. They had a stegosaurus that was found near Canon City that was fully intact. They also had some bones from some other dinosaurs like a T-rex, but not a full skeleton, just parts. The kids didnt' care, they all thought it was cool. The upstairs part of the museum was all hands on stuff: toys, activities, and bones they could touch.

Then we went behind the museum to the Royal Gorge train station. The trains weren't running that day so we could wonder around the yard and look at them. Then we went across the street to a park and watched the ducks for a bit. It was so nice that everything was right there in walking distance. The museum is even just down the street from my aunts house, and it was great that she came along with us.

After lunch we went to the Royal Gorge itself. My cousin got free tickets from her work, so we went and walked across the bridge. It was really windy so the bridge was swaying back and forth and going up and down. It was almost as bad as being on a boat, good thing it wasn't because I get sea sick. Ella loved the bridge moving. She was sitting in her stroller (no way I let her walk) and she kept saying "bump, bump, bump," all away across the bridge. She didn't mind looking over the edge of the bridge either. On the other side was a ghost town set up, not much to do but it gave the kids the opportunity to burn of some energy before the long drive home.

It was a short and busy visit, but we enjoyed it all the same. Here are some pictures of our adventures.

Cousin love

Three not-so-sleepy monkeys

Making faces for the camera

T-Rex foot print

The stegosaurus as it was found

A future in palaeontology?

How long is a T-Rex leg?

The old Royal Gorge train with the new one behind it.

The Royal Gorge Bridge

We did it!

I think we wore them out.