Happy Easter!

Easter time! We had a very nice Easter this year, despite the issue of Joe being on call (he was still able to experience a lot of the holiday) and bad weather. My mom and dad came for the holiday, and we remained busy with the typical Easter things...egg coloring, baking, Easter bunny, eating too much, and holiday outfits.

A new hat for Ethan from grandma and grandpa.


Easter egg coloring seems to be taken as seriously as our Christmas cookie decorating by grandpa, Olivia, and Joe! Olivia had a great time with this, and next year Ethan will be able to participate with her. I guess that means more hard boiled eggs to eat next year :(

Olivia showing off her handiwork.

Olivia and I decorated the eggs with glitter and stickers after they had dried. Many of the eggs were dropped multiple times while dying them, so they also had a really neat looking spiderweb effect to them.

Even though it was only a high in the mid-30's and SNOWING (no accumulation) over Easter weekend, Olivia, grandpa and Joe still made it to the park. Olivia is thrilled that the snow has pretty much melted here and we can see the grass again. Iowa City recorded 58.6 inches of snow for the winter (thus far!), which makes it the third snowiest winter here EVER since the mid 1800s.

Easter morning is upon us! Olivia received plenty of candy, a chocolate bunny, a book, and a Minnie Mouse dress. The Easter bunny was very generous!

Olivia demonstrating how to eat the bunny's ears.

Ethan and his Easter basket full of new bath toys and books.

All dressed up for Easter brunch. With two wriggly kids, one of which is hyped up on chocolate, this is about as good as the picture was going to get.

Olivia is very proud of her green polka dot dress that she picked out by herself. Once she saw it, I knew that I would not be walking out of the store without it!

Ethan looking sharp in his outfit. Luckily bleach was able to get all of the stains out of the shirt that he made throughout the day!

Ready for Easter brunch with the Easter bunny. Joe was not able to attend due to being on call, so we had our big family dinner the night before.

Olivia was so excited to meet the Easter bunny and "give him so much Easter love!" She really wanted to meet him to thank him for the Minnie Mouse dress. It was a nice brunch...good food, the Easter bunny, and some children's activities.

Ethan was not so sure about meeting the Easter bunny.

We had our Easter egg hunt inside due to the snow and cold. Olivia was so busy this morning that she didn't mind waiting on the egg hunt until Joe returned home later in the afternoon. There were not too many places to hide 18 eggs in a small basement room!

Olivia showing off her collection of eggs.

A Little Bit of Everything

These past few weeks have just flown by with activity, so we apologize for not updating the blog on a more regular basis. I'll start with the BIG news - we bought a house! Yeah! I went down alone (well, with the kids) to househunt, and looked at 8 houses total (yes, again, with the kids. I'm nuts). I fell in love with the second house that I looked at, and liked it so much I "forced" Joe to drive to Springfield and back to Iowa City in one day so that he could look at it before taking the plunge. Barring any unforseen problems, we will close on this house in mid-June.

The new casa de Baima. This house was completed in November 2007, so we will be the first owners. The yard is big enough for a swing set, and we love having a clean palate to work with on the inside. The location is great as well - close to several major roads that will quickly get us anywhere we want.


The big selling point to me...the kitchen. I will have a lot of fun in this room!

Olivia and Ethan having fun on yet another yucky day in Iowa City. Both of the kids really love music, particularly the drums. Ethan has started the "baby dance" of bouncing up and down so he is really joining in on the musical fun now! He is also playing peek a boo, clapping his hands, and walking with a push toy almost like a pro.

My little climber. Olivia was not a climber, not now not then. Ethan cannot stop climbing. Just tonight Joe found him on top of Olivia's Barbie car which was on top of Olivia's American Girl wagon, and he was attempting to climb onto the doll house to reach some dolls. And this is all before he can walk, so I know that the worst is yet to come!

My parents came up for a visit a few weeks ago, and so there was another baking session. However, the real lesson came while the brownies were baking - grandpa showing Olivia the art of licking the batter off of the spoon and bowl.

Now we are jumping to when I went to my parent's house last week. I left Iowa City to get away from the snow, and you can guess what happened. It snowed 8 inches in Litchfield the day after I arrived (and Iowa City remained dry the entire time). Sigh. Luckily things are beginning to melt here in the IC, so we are really hoping it melts without incident (ie: flood!). Anyway, this is a picture of Olivia playing with a bowl of snow and food coloring. In a princess dress of course.

Bath time for Ethan. I don't think that he'll last long in this sink, since, you guessed it, he attempts to climb out of it.

Back in Iowa City. Just a cute shot of Ethan sleeping with Enid.

This past weekend Rachel and Thomas came for a visit as they will be unable to come up for the Easter holiday. This is just a silly shot.

Once again, more cooking lessons. If you have not picked up on this yet, my family loves to cook. Here Olivia is learning how to make chocolate-peanut butter bark. Rachel pretty much let her put anything she wanted into the bark, as well...jelly beans, m&ms, dried cherries, sprinkles, etc.

Since the mall here does not have a "real" Easter bunny, Olivia had to make do with these little bunnies.

I can clearly remember Ethan being too small to play on the mall playground, and now he is able to crawl/climb around. I just have to make sure he doesn't get run over on the weekends when it is full of kids.