Easter

 

Easter was a good time this year. Honestly, Easter is never really a let down for so many reasons but here's a couple:

1)I love that it is always on a Sunday. It helps me remember why we are celebrating in the first place. 

2) Out of all the holidays, Easter has THE best candy, hands down! You know I'm right

3) I love that NORMALLY it means that spring is here or really really close and that we can pull out our cute colored clothes once again. Who doesn't love a great Easter outfit after winter attire. 

We celebrated this year  by having an Easter egg hunt with Sadie and Scout before they left for London. This was our last hoorah together and we were pretty sad. Kelsey has already asked for Sadie and I just don't know how to help her understand that she's gone :( They really were best friends.

Anyway the egg hunt was really fun.

 Jamie was so cute and put different things in the eggs like stickers, toys and fruit snacks so it wasn't just delicious candy (which I stole out of Kelsey's eggs while she wasn't looking What! It was delicious). Sadie understood the "hunt" really well but Kelsey... well..

 She would walk up to an egg, shake it and if it didn't rattle she would throw it on the ground. If it did rattle, she would sit down, open her egg and eat what was inside. Luckily Dan taught her to do this much, because otherwise it would have been pretty boring. We tried to help her understand that if she waited to eat it, she would get more in the end but she didn't care. We are a now type of family so what'd you do!

 It was a beautiful evening so after the hunt we just visited and played in the front yard until the sun went down. We are really going to miss Jamie and Sadie. They were great friends and some of the kindest people I have ever met.

 On Saturday the 19th, we decided to go to the BYU Easter egg hunt at the stadium and I can confidentially say I will never ever go again and try to prevent any friends from going. To make this a positive post, I will be short in saying that they made us wait outside the gates for like an hour, corralled 1000 people into the stands to make us sit and hear announcements from a man who clearly was not a parent about BYU sports and other BYU events, only to corral us back down the stairs to surround the field, where they released all of us to gather maybe 500 eggs, only to end in about 5 seconds where we then had to corral back out of the gates to find our families, strollers, and lost children. The most ridiculous part was watching fathers holding infants run to the middle of the field collecting as many eggs and shirts as they possible could literally pushing kids out of the way. NOT my favorite BYU activity, but definitely the biggest waste of time, and I have wasted my time in so many ways at BYU. Okay to be totally positive, Ethan had the time of his life. He could live on that field and so for him is was a great time. Kelsey also had the time of her life climbing up and down the rows and rows of bleachers. I was the one with the no fun attitude.

 

The silver lining was that the Mannings came down to spend the day in Provo. It was such a fun day to be with cousins. We took Harper with us while Julie and Reo ran errands, and oh my goodness! We love Harper! The whole time she was at our house we listened to Frozen and she sang every song "word" for "word". It was so cute. She would even request songs and when they were done she would start singing the song that came next on the soundtrack before it began. SO CUTE! Every since that day, Kelsey now sings "let it go" randomly too. Harper has taught her well. I think my favorite part about Harper singing is that she squishes her face up and gets like super rock star on us. It was AWESOME!

She also helped me make a pie while Kelsey took a nap. Love this face

 

It was just fun to have the Mannings visit. We just love when people willingly make the trek down to Provo. We know its far but its nice not to always have to drive up to Salt Lake to see family. That hour gets old fast. Plus who doesn't love a good Holden comment! We were talking about Lent and everyone was saying what they gave up for Lent. Related but too long to explain, I mentioned that the world was not ready for all my judgments. Holden then told me that I should give up judging for Lent. It was hilarious. 

That evening came the egg dying with Hannah

We gave Kelsey an egg to draw on, and seriously within the first 30 seconds she dropped the egg. Three times!  After she dropped it the third time we noticed that she started peeling off the shell. She started peeling enough of the shell to realized that underneath was an egg. She asked for a spoon, split open the egg and started eating it! It was so cute and so helpful. It kept her more occupied than coloring an egg would have so strong work Kelsey Wing.

Easter Sunday was a GORGEOUS day!! I was able to sing with the ward choir and I felt like our talks and lessons were very inspired. I really felt the spirit of the atonement and am really grateful for that.
We also had a lot of fun with Kelsey on Easter morning. She was VERY excited to see a bunny and a chicken in her Easter basket. Her bunny has already made the night time request list "nigh-night, blankie, baby, books, bunny?" and she loves to get chased by her chicken (its a wind up chicken that hops around. Best dollar store find ever!)

After church we went up to spend a wonderful dinner with the Wings. Kelsey wanted to show Gramma her hat and bunny. She talked about it the whole way up.

 I just feel so grateful for family especially lately., I have not always been the nicest Aunt to my nephews and I get worried that I have ruined our relationships permanently.  I get too worried about being in control and not worried enough about being kind and loving. On Sunday morning, Skyler called me, just ME, to tell me that he had lost his tooth. I almost cried. We talked for 10 minutes about his two missing teeth and how he pulled them out all by himself. We then talked about his awesome Easter egg hunt the day before and how he was excited to wear matching ties with his brothers. Later that day, on our way up dinner, he called again and asked if I had gotten the picture his mom had sent showing off his giant gap in his mouth! It was such a great day for me! It is something so small and seemingly insignificant, but its nice to know that all my meanness has been forgotten for now and we can still be friends :)