Happy Easter!

We had another great Easter this year with our families. We started the day with 8:00 am mass with our and Amber and Tony's families, followed by a few family pictures. We then brought out the Easter baskets and enjoyed watching the kids open them including a classic meltdown by Genevieve because she only liked ONE of the Little Pony sets she received :). After relaxing a little bit, we headed to Opa and Kathleen's to prepare brunch, visit, and hide Easter eggs! Around noon James and Jenn's, Marcus', Duane and Mary's, & David and Amy's families joined us for brunch and the hunt. Genevieve had so much fun looking for eggs with Daddy as her partner! Cade and Willem played lots of basketball with their cousins, Pascal, Roman and Daniel and all the cousins seemed to really enjoyed each other. It was so much fun to have Tucker and Davida there too. And then there was the annual trading of candy. At 3:00 we went to Chad's mom and dad's house for a delicious dinner, more egg hunting and lots of relaxing and visiting. What a fabulous day!!

Ready to open Easter baskets! 

Another classic pic that Cade and Willem laughed at for a good five minutes this evening :)

Love my daughters!

Opa's House! 

Willem showing some love! 

Tucker!!

So cute to see Nev and Nia running with joy as they searched for eggs! 

Gabrielle teamed up with Jacoby

Tucker LOVED the candy :)

Love these pictures!

These three cousins are still the best of friends

 

 Genevieve was a tough bargainer during the candy exchange!

Such a cool picture of our girl

We didn't get a picture of Davida as she went down for a nap but I wanted to include her in my Easter post so I stole this from Amber's camera. She took a ton of absolutely beautiful pictures of Davida this past week which I'm sure will post soon. Amber gets all the credit for this great picture!!

Love these fun ones of Cade and Elle with cousins Pascal and Selene

 

Grandma with her girls  

 The picture on the right cracks me up with Will and Nev's faces after Willem got an egg right as Nev was grabbing for it too!

 

 Also wanted to include these fun pictures of earlier in the week when our kids decorated these bunny cookies. Love how they have so much fun together.

While we were in Disneyland...

While we where in Disneyland with Genevieve, Cade went to San Fransisco with his soccer team for their first college showcase tournament. Unfortunately Cade could not play due to his fractured back but he still had a good time with his teammates. It was fun getting a few picture texts from him while we were in Disneyland. His team went 1-1-1 at the tournament and the coach and chaperones reported that the boys behaved very well all weekend which was nice to hear :)...

Gabrielle stayed with her friend, Jorja, while we were in Disneyland and she sent me this text message of her poem that she asked me to edit for school. Love, love, love this, especially the line 'I'm from life isn't fair and never give up' (we say both those things a lot at our house) and 'oh my sunshine' as I sang "You Are My Sunshine" a lot to our kids and '8 kids working at 1:00 in the morning' (My siblings and I pulled a lot of night shifts as kids on the dairy). Made my and Chad's day reading this :)

And, finally, Willem stayed with James and Jenn and it was lot of fun getting texts about his Sunday soccer game where he scored a great volley goal in his team's win. He had his cousin, Roman, as well as a couple of uncles watching. Nice to know he was so well supported when we were gone.

Disneyland!

Our three big kids have been to Disneyland at least three times each. But Genevieve had not gone yet and we did not want to miss out on her going while she's into princesses and all things magical! So we decided to just go for a quick trip with just her earlier this month. It was much easier logistically with the big kids' busy schedules and much less expensive! We had such a great time with her. Some things we want to remember:

- Nev's favorite rides: Grizzly River Rapids Ride and Ariel

- Nev wanted to be on our shoulders or in a stroller the entire time!

- She loved her first taste of cotton candy (no surprise).

- She was more daring than I expected as she enjoyed the rapids ride, Splash Mountain and the Matterhorn. But she also loved all the smaller rides like Peter Pan, Winny the Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, Small World, etc.

- We were sure she'd want to visit all the princesses but she was content to just see them from afar and was not interested in waiting in lines to see them.

- She loved seeing Pluto, Mickey, Minney, Goofy, Donald and Daisy Duck. We had lunch in ToonTown two of the days, right by where these characters make their entrance into the park after breaks, so she got to visit them all without having to wait in any lines.

- Speaking of lines, most ride lines were short, 10-20 minutes, except Cars Land which is new and a couple other rides. Early March, during the week, is a great time to visit Disneyland. I wish the temperature was a little warmer (it was 65-70 degrees) but it was still nice enough.

- Each day, after about six hours in the park, Genevieve started asking about when we could go back to the hotel to swim. We made it eight hours in the park each day but we were happy to then go back by then and relax at the hotel. We never did get to see the parade as Nev was just too ready to go swim. Fine by us!

- We stayed at the Marriott Anaheim which was a nice hotel about a 25 minute walk to the entrance. The walk wasn't bad but I still wish we could stay right in Disneyland at The California Resort, it would be so convenient. Maybe one of these years!
 
- Nev talks about wanting to go back often though she has asked if we could go back with our whole family next time :)

At the airport, ready to go!

Nev enjoyed the plane ride at the beginning when she could see the ground but once it was all clouds and then dark, she got a little bored so we took silly pictures to occupy the time :)

More airplane iPhone pictures

The first night, watching the fireworks from the hotel room balcony

Finally in Disneyland! She loved seeing the castle.

First ride!

 First purchase (Minnie ears)

Love this smile!

 Nev loved Minnie's house

More pictures while waiting in line for teapots!

 

Chad and I get in on the action too!

      

 More Disneyland adventures. Nev loved seeing Jasmine the most out of the princesses. And she loved going into the Whale's mouth in the boat. It was fun seeing lots of things from Disneyland for the first time that out big kids weren't too interested in like the smaller rides (Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan). Our big kids were more into the big rides (our boys) and getting princess signatures (Elle).

 

On Daddy's shoulders!

Another highlight....swimming with Daddy! 

Nev also LOVED getting her face painted.  

  

Me and my girl!   

Waiting in line together

So much fun to experience everything through Nev's eyes!

Nev loved the 'Redwood Creeek Challenge Trail' area 

 

 Tired girl in the airport waiting for our flight home

Gymnastics for Nev!

After much pleading by Genevieve, we finally enrolled her in a gymnastics class. She was so excited for her first class! The first trial day, she actually did two classes in a row, the 3-4.5 year old class and the 4.5-6 year old class, and cried when it was time to leave. We decided to enroll her in the 4.5-6 year old class and she's doing great. Now she asks most days if she has gymnastics class that day! So much fun to see her love it so much. She also says she really wants to do a dance class, play on a soccer team and play on a basketball team! And, I love it :)

 So excited for her first class!

Pure bliss!

Loving every minute!

 Focus!

Disneyland - Our Favorite Souvenirs

Chad, Genevieve and I got to spent three days in Disneyland in early March and here are our two favorite souvenirs from the trip...

This 'Grizzly Rapids Ride' video, it totally captures Genevieve's joy being on the ride (her favorite):

And, this picture of us riding 'Splash Mountain':

Nev's expression cracked Chad and me up so much! She claims she had fun on the ride!

Lots more pictures to come, of-course, but here are a few pictures of Nev's favorite ride, 'Grizzly River Raft Ride'...