Happy Easter

The kids rose early on Easter morning, so anxious to see what was left by the Easter Bunny.

Much to their surprise, they were left with a basket of goodies AND a gift.
Showing off their "Easter Morning" eggs.

Annabel is in love with Elmo!
So what better gift than Elmo himself.

William's gift was the "Hungry Hippo" game and
boy did we have a few intense games before church.
William quickly learned that the orange hippo was not
very fast- so he was quick to pass it off to someone else.

Family shot at church

The HUNT Begins:
Annabel was to find the pink and purple eggs and
William found red and orange eggs. This made sure that they each
got the same number of eggs.

Our Sweet and growing family!

He has RISEN!
Hoping your family had a blessed Easter!

Easter Party

Today, the kids and I attended an Easter Party hosted by our friend
Marion, from MOPs.

It is her family tradition to have an "egg fight".
Each participant was asked to bring 6 hard boiled eggs.
The kids loved coloring the eggs the night before.
This game was a blast for all ages!

How to play:
1. Each player holds one hard boiled egg
2. One person taps their egg on the other person's egg
3. Keep tapping until one egg cracks.
The egg that cracks first is "out"
4. Round 2: Turn the egg over to the uncracked side and repeat
5. Switch partners (if available) and keep playing until ALL eggs are cracked
6. Count your cracked eggs.
The person with the least amount "wins"
Annabel and her basket of eggs

William and Anna playing

Annabel wanted to play by herself

LOOK- its cracked

"Oh NO!"

William and Mommy playing a round

All the kids
4 years old to 3 months old

This was a fun game we may have to add to our Easter!

Decorating Cookies AND Coloring Easter Eggs

Easter was quickly approaching and we had yet to decorate cookies or color eggs.
SO we did both in the same afternoon/evening.

I may have been a little over ambitious.
The kids took long naps so I was up for the challenge and knew we
could continue after dinner if need be.
Cookies- so many colors... which to choose

Annabel looking intense in her decorating.
(I did a terrible job documenting-Sorry!)

Egg Time

Coloring eggs!
They did such a great job and really had FUN!
And the shocking part is they ate the hard boiled eggs!

Annabel did it all by herself

Showing off her hard work

William working at his creation

Just about done

HAPPY EASTER!

Easter

Easter at Auntie Amber, Uncle Brian, Timothy and Caelyn

Brian and Amber hosted a lovely Easter Brunch. The cousins LOVE being together! The day was bitter sweet, not only did we celebrate but we (the Banta's) said our good byes.

Cousins waiting for the egg hunt to begin

Beka, Annabel, William and Timothy
The BIG boys are ready
a sneak peek

"Look what I got"

2 eggs YEAH

Going on an egg hunt...

Goin' find some eggs!

The Dowd Family-3 generations

We had a great day despite the rain! The weather put a damper on some outdoor fun- testing out the pool, outdoor egg hunt, but we made up for it inside. We hit the road earlier than planned in hopes of avoiding freezing temperatures over Summit. Unfortunately, we hit SNOW at a super low elevation and crawled back to Reno. We thought we might turn around but Ryan needed to get back to Reno for an early Monday morning. 4 hours later with chains we made it back home. It was a long drive but so worth it. This was the first time in seven years of living in Nevada that we put chains on and it was the middle of APRIL!