Easter Weekend take 1: Spokane

Whenever Steve has a break from school, we try to get out of Dodge and go see family. Friday, March 30th, we headed to Spokane to see some of my family. Here are a few pictures from that trip.

This is Ellie's cousin Wyatt and her playing with his toy on Sunday. Not a great picture, I know, but I included it for my sisters who haven't seen them in a while purely so they could see how big they've both gotten. It's one of the only pictures of them both upright together.

The next pictures are from our pre-Easter celebrations with my Dad, Kerry, my sister Jennifer, and her son Wyatt. We had fun with the kids both opening baskets from Grandma and Grandpa, and then they opened what we brought for them. We also had a fantastic ham dinner - yum! This picture cracks me up because Kerry (Grandma "Sun" according to Ellie - love it!) put her Easter basket from the grandparents in front of her and then told her not to touch it for pictures. This was the happy and confused picture we got as a result. Gotta love the hands in the air as she isn't sure what to do with them.

Here is a picture of both the grandkids with their baskets from Dad and Kerry. Wyatt was way more interested in what Ellie was pulling out of her basket than in doing anything with his. And Ellie is old enough that she dug right through her basket looking at everything and then informed us "All done!" when it was empty.

Here is Ellie digging through her basket we brought. The girl definitely understands gifts for her now. One of my favorite parts was a little Tangled doll we got her because Ellie is in LOVE with Tangled and calls per Punzel. We were pretty boring though and filled it with a few fun things and lots of stuff she needed anyway, like sippy cups, silverware, a new toothbrush, and socks. I know, we're awesome. Only we would replace candy in an Easter basket with a new toothbrush.

Once the kids had dug through their loot, we headed outside for Ellie's first Easter egg hunt. It took her a minute to figure out what she was supposed to do, and I don't think she understood that there was a benefit to collecting the eggs, but once she realized what to do, she needed no assistance. The girl loved collecting eggs in her cute little bucket.

After the egg hunt was over, Ellie spent some quality time with Daddy over at Grandma and Grandpa's pond. Ellie loves the koi that are in the pond (she loves all fish, really) and wants to go over and look in the water for them all the time when we go see "Papa" and "Sun". I love this picture. The joy these two bring each other makes me happy. Steve is such a fantastic father.

So, that's how we spent our first weekend of Spring Break. The next day brought a Monday full of travelling in the car to Preston, where we had a great rest of our break. Thanks Dad and Kerry for lots of fun!