Happy Easter!

Let me start by apologizing for the reverse chronological order these photos appear in. Start at the bottom and scroll up :).

Easter started off with a big bang - literally. DJ and I were relaxing in the living room early Easter morning, before Addison made her way upstairs, and with Isla sleeping peacfully in our bed (we brought her in when she woke up at 6 in the morning, and she was still sleeping at 7). Or so we thought she was sleeping. She must have woken up and wanted to party, because all of a sudden we heard a huge bang and a scream. Sure enough she had crawled off the side of the bed and fell right onto the hardwood floor. We FREAKED out and imediately scooped her up, tears pouring down her chubby cheeks. Poor, poor Isla, we felt just AWFUL. She's just so mobile now, we'll never be leaving her "asleep" in our bed ever again. I won't go into detal about the amount of guilt, sadness and pain we felt for the little pumpkin, but I'm sure you can imagine.

No sooner had Isla recovered from the fall (with a big bruise on her forehead), sitting in the living room playing with a plastic egg, than Addison came tearing around the corner, tipping Isla over in her wake. Whaaaaaa!!! Another tumble and bump to the head. More tears, more sadness. THEN, Addison was playing in her leather toychest at the foot of our bed when Isla crawled around the corner and grabbed onto the side to pull herself up. Addison chose this very same moment to CLOSE the lid of the chest so she could climb onto our bed, slamming Isla's fingers in the process. All this before 10am. Could this morning get any worse? I almost called child protective services on us! We literally said to ourselves "OK, we need to re-set and start this day over again." And things got much better from there on out.

I should mention that in the midst of all this, we did manage to have a fun little Easter egg/Easter basket hunt around our house which Addison was thrilled about, and Ba and Nana came over with Easter baskets of their own. Pile all this on top of the Easter goodies that Grandma and the Grandpa's sent, and these girls had lots of very special treats. We headed to the Martin's for brunch where Isla slept for most of the afternoon (can you blame her? This also explains why there are no pictures of her from today) and Addison ran around having a blast. Another Easter egg hunt, lots of toys and games, and gorgeous weather to boot. All in all a great day, despite the rocky start!

Hunting for eggs at Carly and Cassie's

Got one!

All the girlies - the whole family - all girls

Running down to the play equipment in Carly and Cassie's yard

Notice how Addison gives Cassie the slightest shove down the slide because she was taking a little too long. That's my girl!

"Follow me" she's saying to Cassie

Nana with her Easter bunnies

Hunting for eggs at our house in the morning

Easter loot

Isla found an egg too! She also ate 2 jelly beans.

The night before we made homemade pizzas! Whole wheat pitas make a great crust. Even Isla had her own, with tomatoes and cheese.

Coloring eggs - Addison did great!

High-fiving the Easter Bunny - she was obsessed with him

Isla's tricks

A Few Cute Moments Caught on Film

I haven't been extremely diligent about updating the blog lately, so family in CA - sorry about that! We've been so busy with life in general and the weekends just seem to slip away. It is mid-April, but yes, it is still winter here. This is the worst of the worst that I can remember in 6 years. In fact, we're supposed to get 6 inches of snow over the next couple of days. Ridiculous! We're starved for warmth and sunshine and playing outside, so we're holding our breaths that this may be the last of it and by May we'll be in the clear. We're looking forward to a fun-filled Easter with Guy, Heather, Carly, Cassie and all the usual suspects at the Martin's Easter brunch. I'm planning on dolling the girls up in matching dresses, so wish me luck that they actually stay in them!

Addison was so proud here that she ate her veggies - snow peas, snap peas and red and green bell peppers. She ate 3 shrimp too! Dinner is a battle every night. Fun! Addison would live on yogurt and fruit if we let her. Isla on the other hand can shovel it in like nobody's business! Bring on the broccoli!

Big strong girl pulling herself up A lovely rendition of some song from Dora the Explorer

I know what you're thinking - wow, that blue robe is HOT! Don't mind me, this was in the morning as we were getting ready. One of my favorite parts of the morning is how excited Isla gets when she knows she's about to get her vitamin D drops. See, that's what you have to give kids when you live in the icy tundra of 7 months of winter since they don't see the light of day. Me? Bitter? Nooooooo!

Little Pied Piper!

Isla's on the move!

Isla's creeping and crawling and scooting and squirming all over the place these days! She's more adventurous than Addison was at this age in terms of pulling up on and climing into things. She's becoming even more vocal and imitates most sounds that we throw her way. This age is so much fun!!!

The Scoot

Creepy Crawler

She said "nana" a couple of times here when I was feeding her bits of banana during lunch, asking her if she wanted the "nana". If you listen close enough you can kind of hear it...I didn't catch the best one on camera.