Rowan's birthday party and 2 very dirty kids

We had Rowan's 2nd birthday party to attend on this past Sunday. We've had gorgeous weather most of the past week so it was outside and very warm. I took a few pics, but mostly on my sister's camera, so I've only got one from that day to post on here. It was such a nice day and so much fun. My little nephew is such a big boy now! Isabel enjoyed playing with her cousins in dirt and got quite messy. This first pic is from that day. These next pics are from Monday. We thought Isabel was dirty on Sunday; we were very wrong.
Isabel and Rowan dug a nice hole in the backyard with all his new sandbox toys. He doesn't have a sandbox yet so they were improvising.
Then Isabel starting smearing the dirt all over her face and Rowan found this hilarious. So of course that spurred her on even more.

This is the end result, one very dirty kid. I guess I'm glad that she likes to play in the dirt and isn't afraid of getting messy, but this seems a little excessive! She left a pretty good ring around the tub last night! Poor kid also has no shorts and only a couple of t-shirts so far. I haven't gotten around to buying her summer clothes yet, so she was wearing a pair of Rowan's old shorts yesterday. They looked pretty goofy on her. It was almost 90 degrees here yesterday and it's still only April! It's only in the low 70's here today, absolutely perfect weather. I'm getting my garden ready to plant and getting as much sun as I can. I love springtime!

Easter eggs and snuggles

We had a very mellow Easter here this year. We had just moved in, we're really still getting settled. We were headed to my Grandma's house for lunch, so we didn't make it to church because we wouldn't have gotten to Grandma's on time if we went. So we enjoyed our morning at home together. We "hid" Easter eggs for Isabel in plain sight down the stairs and across the living room leading to her basket in the kitchen. It was pretty cold out and we really didn't want to do the outside hunt. Isabel squealed with delight as she found each egg and loved the matchbook cars that I hid inside some of them. She also got a Curious George coloring book and some washable markers and a tiny purse with a couple more cars inside. She loves to parade around carrying her purse and wearing one of daddy's hats. We did have an outside hunt at Grandma's house. My cousin Scott scattered chocolate eggs on the lawn for the little ones to "find". They didn't really know what to do and it was still really cold, but they were awfully cute and seemed to have a good time. Here's Isabel and Austin gathering the loot.
Ooh, look at all the shiny chocolate!
These pics I just took today. I watched Rowan at my house today. These were taken just after the kids took their naps. I brought Isabel downstairs first then went to get Rowan. Isabel reached out her arms to him and asked for him to join her on the couch. I sat him down next to her and he snuggled closer as they watched Curious George and ate fishy crackers and grapes.
Sometimes they can be so sweet with each other!

Jackson Trip

Isabel and I had a great trip out to Jackson, Wyoming. We were there for 12 days, but it went by too fast. I got to see most of the people that I wanted to, but I really felt like I didn't have enough time. I doubt it will ever seem like enough, unless we move back there. Isabel was such a trooper! She went out to dinner and lunch more times in those 12 days than she had in the past year. She was great on the flights out there; a portable DVD player with a couple of Sesame dvd's really helped. We stayed most of the time with Anthony and EB and for a few nights with Steve and Christy. At Anthony and EB's house Isabel's favorite thing to do was to chase the cat and dog, luckily they are very patient animals and Isabel was really gentle with them. Hopefully we'll be able to get her a cat of her own soon. We had a horrific time getting back to Massachusetts. Our flight left Jackson about 15 minutes late and headed to Dallas which was socked in by storms. They almost sent up to Shreveport while they closed Dallas for a little bit, but then they re-opened and we were able to land. Unfortunately we then sat on the tarmac for about 20 minutes while waiting for a gate. We also were in the air for about an extra 45 minutes. All this meant that we missed our connecting flight by 7 minutes! Then next flight out to Hartford was at 7pm, 6 hours later. Okay, so we dealt with that and Isabel was awesome. Then that flight was delayed! First because our head flight attendant hadn't arrived yet, then lightning closed the airport. All in all it was a horrible experience. We finally boarded at 10pm and took off at 10:30. Isabel didn't sleep all day, and she got up at 5:45am. She finally fell asleep on the plane at 11pm. The last hour at the airport before boarding was horrible, she was a cranky screaming mess. We got in to Hartford at about 2:35am and then had to wait till 3:15 for Jason to arrive to pick us up. By the time we got home it was 4:15am. Yuck! I will never fly through Dallas again, I hate that airport! We were supposed to move into our new apartment on Saturday, the same day as we ended up arriving home,but we postponed that till Sunday. We were a bit more rested then and the move went pretty smoothly. We're fairly settled into our new place and happy to be closer to family. I miss all my friends back in Jackson and had so much fun spending time with everyone. Thanks for making it such a great trip everybody!

This is Isabel in her favorite chair at Steve and Christy's, watching Elmo on the tv.

Suzanne, Abby, Isabel and I at the Cadillac.
Playing with Anthony and Russell(Russell is the dog).

Clumping around in Anthony's huge hiking boots.

Playing with Steve and Cusco.
Aaaw! Snuggling with Steve.