Cecilia Is THREE!

We celebrated this cute, little cow girl's 3rd birthday this afternoon at her house.  Cecilia's 3rd birthday is actually ON Easter Sunday this year, so we're celebrating a day early.  :)

 

Toys that belong to other kids are always so much more fun than yours.

Not the best pic, but the only snapshot of these three together.

Pin the tail on the donkey.

And Dora water bottles for party favors.

Cake time!

My kids were a lively bunch during the cake festivities...  ;)

But every morsel was enjoyed!

Cousin love.

Oh my goodness, Veronica gets cuter every time we see her! Her hair's really grown and started to curl and I swear kids hit a point when their eyelashes just seem to double in length overnight.  Such a pretty girl.

Gift opening.

So glad our My Little Pony card brought such a big smile!

Easy there, cow girl!  Yer fallin' off yer horse there.  Now just pull up yer britches and hang on to them reigns!

Good thing Cecilia didn't mind sharing all her new presents!  Good grief.  This girl!

Spring-ish Morning

Those first warmish days in early spring are such an appreciated blessing!  We hit he playground this morning when it was still pretty empty and the kids got some good exercise and fresh air.

When we got home, I tucked little bits of their lunch into washed, plastic eggs in an egg carton and closed them all up.  Then I had them wait in the garage with Craig while I hid an egg carton for each of them.  (Just like last year.)

I called them out to hunt around the yard for their lunches and Sophie found hers under the little play gym.

Will's was on the seat inside the big lift we have in our yard right now for Craig to finish siding the higher parts of our house.

I brought them out a water bottle and a plastic plate to dump their egg contents into if they wanted.  It was a little windy and chilly but they wanted to eat outside!  :)

Loving spring time!

Easter Fun With Nana & Cousins

I had to work on the morning of Good Friday this year.  :(  Boo.  But grateful that the kids spent the morning with my mom and got things prepped for our annual egg coloring and cookie frosting that could begin when the Rethman crew and I arrived around lunch time.  The kids had a messy blast as usual.  :)

Being careful on the drop-in so as not to splash.

 

LOTS of adult hands are necessary to assist with this sort of activity.  Haha!  (Sorry for capturing your sniffle face, Wes.  I know you weren't as grossed out as you appear here.  LOL)

The wait time for egg coloring is always a challenge.  Will took to heart the old adage of "a watched pot never boils" by covering his eyes while his eggs were in their color bath.  I think he assumed that if he couldn't see it, it would happen faster.

We love cousin time!

We also love Nana time!

Stella looks SOOO grown up here.  That looks like a teenager expression!

Beeeautiful!

Wes and mom were just being silly with this pose.

You can't see Nana in this picture but she was singing "Little Bunny Foo Foo" and the kids were singing along with all the hand gestures.  How lucky are these kids to have a preschool teacher for a grandma?

On to cookie frosting!  They all made the cut-outs on an earlier day with Nana so today was the task of frosting.

Sophie did more of this than frosting...

There are a lot of these just because (as you know) there's always someone not looking or smiling in each picture.  So, mom, you can choose your favorite(s) and I'll make you a copy.  P.S. mom, it looks like you're breastfeeding the doll in this picture.  LOL!

Time for basket hunting!

Sophie found hers behind the oversized chair in the "piano room".

And Will's was in that wickery basket in the corner of the room.

Such lucky kids!

Love you, Stella Grace!

All our hard work...

Soph and Uncle Dub

And of course, we immediately went home and played with the new bath tub toys and bubbles from their baskets!

Thanks, Nana, for another wonderful afternoon of memory-making!