Weekend via iPhone

 

We spent our first wekeend of April doing some special things with the kids.  Libby, my mom and I had made plans for a "girls' day" in Hershey to take the girls to see Disney's Princesses on Ice.  The girls absolutely loved it.  I wish I would have captured a picture of Lauren's face when she saw Ariel skate out onto the ice.  Meeting Ariel was the highlight of her Disney trip last spring, and she still loves her.  Mara- although not known for sitting still- did a pretty good job of making it through the show with minimal scrooching and no fussing.  So on all accounts, it was a great morning.

After the show, we headed to the Outlets to let the kids pick out something special at the Disney Store.  But first, some tailgating for lunch.  I believe it was all of 30 degrees outside with a windchill of -5, but we ate our picnic lunch anyway.  The Richard Girls are not fair weather picnickers (how in the world do you spell that?).

 

While we were doing all things princessy- Joshua and Daddy were doing some book shopping and they picked out a new video game to play together.  They had a great day and I think both enjoyed a break from all of the estrogen that normally surrounds them.

 

After church on Sunday, while I worked in the kitchen, this is what Lauren did to the dining room.  Have mercy.

 

And Josh and Daddy headed to Bucknell for a little sports fair they were offering for kids to have a chance to get some experience with the players from different sports teams.  He absolutely loved the chance to meet some basketball players and play some basketball with them. 

And I'll leave you with this little gem.  No real description necessary.  Just Mara being Mara.

My posts got published out of order-- please don't miss the Easter post below.

Happy Easter....better late than never!

So I think we all know how this post is going to start....

 

It was a wonderful holiday weekend, but goodness were we busy!  It was one of those weekends where you wonder whether it would be inappropriate to take another weekend to recover from the weekend!

 

After celebrating Easter with both Lauren and Joshua's classes on Wednesday and Thursday last week, we got packed up and headed to my parents' house on Friday afternoon.  It had been quite a while since the kids had an overnight visit with Nana and Pap, so they were a little wound up about the idea of being there with them and a chance to play with Brooke and Hayden.  Needless to say, the playing was in full swing about 30 seconds after we arrived.



 

After some tormenting that Pap was doing to the kids about their stuffed friends, Joshua and Lauren concocted a plan to set up a "Pap Trap" on Saturday morning.  Cracked me up that Lauren was waiting outside of Pap's bedroom to trip him with that little dog on a leash, and then Joshua was prepared to jump out of the closet and wrap him up in a blanket.  Their 6' 2" Pap.  That would have been cute.  I did manage to convince them that it probably wasn't a good idea to trip him, and that they would quite likely LOSE in the battle to take him down.  But I think I'll forever laugh at this picture.

On Saturday afternoon, Nana had prepared an egg hunt for the kids, and they were more than ready!  We held them off for just a few minutes in order to try and take a few pictures.  I love this one of Libby and Hayden.  I swear I could just eat her right up.  Hayden, not Libby.  Although Lib's awfully cute too.

Getting five looking in the same direction was a little tricky.

And they're off!  (PS. Please don't miss Mara's ponytail!  That girl's hair is going to be the death of me, but I couldn't stop smiling about the little teeny ponytail.)

Pap was perched above the yard on the deck to supervise the action.

 

Mom and Dad cooked an absolutely delicious meal on Saturday night, and then we decided to head home so that we could go to our church on Sunday morning, as well as head to Jason's parents' house on Sunday afternoon to share dinner with them.  The kids were thrilled to wake up at home on Sunday morning to find some treats from the Easter Bunny.  Joshua has been really into reading lately- blazing through Magic Treehouse books by about one a day, so the Bunny took an opportunity to pick out some new books for the kids.  He was thrilled with his new Treehouse books and an Encyclopedia Brown book too.  Looks like we may have found our next obsession in the Encyclopedia Brown series.  The Bunny picked out some Fancy Nancy books for Lauren-- couldn't possibly be more perfect for our little Fancy Pants.  And Mara's obsession with Peppa Pig brought her a Peppa book that I have read to her no less than 8000 times since Sunday morning.  And candy.  Lots and lots of candy.  They're loving the special treats.

After church, we headed to Grandma and Grandpa's house to eat supper with them and Aunt Sheri and Jai.  Aunt Sheri had prepared another egg hunt for the kids, and they had a great time with that.  Dinner was delicious again--- I swear, I could eat Easter dinner once a week and not get sick of it.  Soooo good.  And surprisingly not too bad on the Weight Watcher points with some reasonable portion control.  I'm not saying I exercised good portion control, but it wouldn't have been too bad if I had even the slightest bit of self control.

 

We certainly were blessed with good family time this past weekend, and lots of good memories of time together.  I love Easter-- everything about it.  And I hope with these kinds of great family traditions, our children always will too.