Cousins, Cousins and MORE Cousins!

After our Easter Extravaganza Papa took the girls for a special afternoon and I took Colin to my sister-in-law, Jen's, baby shower.  We had so much fun meeting some of our new cousins.  Jason's cousins Heather, Jaime and Danielle all had babies within a month of each other, now we're just waiting on Jen's daughter, Siena.  We were lucky enough to meet Addison, Heather's daughter, and Carter, Jaime's son.  Colin had fun checking them out, I'm sure he felt cool being the big boy for once :-)

Easter in Ladera

Every year we look forward to all of the wonderful celebrations our community has and one of our favorites is the Easter celebration.  It's a fun day filled with egg hunts, bouncy houses, treats and time with family and friends.  This year Jason was out of town so I took Ashley and Colin with Papa and Ashley's cousin Ellie from Fresno.  They had a blast!  They both walked away with about 40 Easter eggs filled with stickers, candy and little toys.  The girls did the surf's up obstacle course, they bounced like little jumping beans in the bounce house and crawled like critters in the caterpillar.  When we were all done Papa bought a bag of Kettle corn, holy moly, the girls thought they had died and gone to heaven.  It was so cute because he just held it behind his back and the girls followed closely so they could pluck popcorn out of the bag like little duckies as we walked home.

Ellie had just tossed her shoes on the stroller, but when she saw how Ashley put hers on there she came back and spent a good minute getting her shoes to sit just like Ashley's.  BTW, are those the cutest chubby baby feet you've ever seen??  I think so :-)

This is by far the biggest fluff ball of a dog I have EVER seen!

Papa's little duckies

March Day in the Park

We packed up the kids and Hauser for an afternoon in the park.  Daddy raced Hauser, Ash and Dad flew kites, Colin drooled and smiled, Ashley threw balls for Hauser, and Mom made Ash and Colin have a photo shoot.  It was simple and special all at the same time.

Preparing for Flight

 

If only everyone saw the 15 pictures I took to get this ONE decent shot.  They included hair pulling, spitting  up, whining and falling over.

Daddy Love

My Four Loves

Chubby Baby Feet Just Begging for A Kiss

Ash and Hauser

Hmmm, Grass.  He quickly realized he didn't really like it.

Tickle Time

Bathing Babes

When we had Ashley we had the perfect set up for her to take a bath in the kitchen sink until she was old enough to sit in the bath on her own, at our new place it's very different.  It never occurred to me that I should get Colin a bath seat until one day I had had enough of the back breaking maneuver I was doing to give the poor boy a bath, not to mention the time it took to give two kids separate baths.  As soon as it hit me we ran to the store and solved our problems.  When these two are in the bath together it's nothing but giggles and smiles.  Colin loves to chew on duckies while he watches sis play with the toys.  Watching both of my babes take a bath together really reminded me that I have two children, it is now one of my favorite parts of the day.

Cuddle Buddies

Do you think these two were tired????

Bedtime Smiles

When I put Ashley to bed last night I was cuddling with her and we were just talking (one of my favorite things in life).  Out of the blue she said, "Mommy, do you know who really, really, really, really loves me??"  I said, "Who?" she responded, "God!"  My heart skipped a few beats and was instantly warm and fuzzy.  There is no greater joy than for me to hear that my daughter knows she is loved by God.  This made me especially happy because two weeks ago she had a rough day and ended the day with tears.  I recommended that she say a prayer and she told me she thought God wouldn't hear her because he forgot about her.  So I read her some stories from her Bible to remind her how much God loves her and how he has never forgotten about her and never will, I still went to bed crying that night, my heart ached.  Hearing her say God loved her last night was an answer to my prayers.

The funny part was that she ended the conversation like this...
Ashley:  Mom, I really wish Jesus was a girl and God was a boy.
Me: (kind of giggling) Why?
Ashley:  Because then I would have a girl Jesus and a boy God and it would be more fun.
Me: Why would it be more fun?
Ashley: Because I like to color and paint with girls and I like to ride bikes with boys silly!

We ended the night with a good laugh and a big squeeze, a wonderful way to end the weekend.