Seattle for Easter

After snapping this picture, the 6 hour flight where T didn't sleep a wink was suddenly all worthwhile.  And the 5 hour flight back (don't ya love flying to the east??) where she slept 1/5 hours was worth it too.  On our flight to Seattle, the woman next to me was complimenting Tatum on how well she did on the flight and even said she hopes to sit next to us again on the return trip to JFK.  She lies. Nobody wishes to sit by a 2 year old.

I told my parents we were coming, but for the rest it was a surprise.  Dad walked into the room with Tatum asleep on his shoulder.  I guess Autumn had a rough time getting to sleep, because Noelle saw Tatum and assumed Autumn had escaped again, thinking "Why is Autumn out of bed again, and where did she get those pants???"  Too funny!  The surprise for Rick and Heather the following day wasn't as grand, I'm pretty positive they assumed I would come...

Friday we loaded up the kids and headed out to Ikea!  Ice cream cones and meatballs for all!  I got a new dish scrubber and a few other trinkets that would fit in my backpack home.  I am excited to have measuring cups with intact handles!  The kids LOVE listening and singing along to Frozen in the car.  We must have heard it over 50 times in 4 days, which is fine by me, I love those songs!

Our backyard fire pit building from this summer is really paying off!  The kids loved practicing "Stop, Drop and Roll" and everyone loves s'mores!

The kids were all such buddies!  It is like Tatum can sense who her cousins are, because she immediately took to all of them and ran around playing and acting crazy for hours on end.  Normally she checks in with me at least every 10 minutes and doesn't like me going too far... but at Bestaland, she was a crazy woman!  I seriously sent her downstairs to play and didn't hear from her for 2.5 hours!

The Whitehead crew arrived late Friday night, unfortunately I was too tired to stay up very late.  11pm felt like 2am for me...  But we sure got the party started Saturday morning!  French toast and the kid Easter egg hunt in the morning!  It was awesome.  Each kid had a certain color to search for, and since nobody was planning on Tatum being there, she found all the colors, but only on the bottom deck.  The cousins knew that all those eggs were for T.  It worked great!  Tatum LOVED racing back and forth accross the deck finding, and then re-finding all her eggs!  She does care what's inside, but more than that she loves finding, opening and closing them.

The adult egg hunt was a real adventure.  We waited until dark and used our headlamps to search the hilly/foresty/overgrown backyard.  It was really hard to see in the dark,  but we did end up finding 55/60 eggs that were hidden.  Each adult contributed ~12 eggs, filled with a prize, challenge, joke or treat.  There were also real eggs filled with confetti hidden- if you find a "Castarones" then you crack it on somebody's head and steal an egg of your choice!  Some eggs that I contributed were 4 stool softeners with a note warning not to take them all at once, my favorite sugar cookie recipe, a voucher for a sketch of the recipient's eyebrows... Others offered a joke, a race to post an elvis impersonation on Instagram (winner gets a juice squeeze), a challenge to place 7 reeses puffs between your lips all at once, you know, things like that!  I was thrilled to be there for the midnight hunt this year since hearing last years stories.

 I recruited Annie as my personal back rubber.  She is pretty good!

 The Whiteheads left for Spokane about the time we left for church.  Our efforts for a cousin picture in their Sunday best failed.  Here's an okay one of Tatum in the Easter dress I sewed for her!

Monday we took the kids to a playground, then McDonalds playspace, and a few more errands.

Tuesday we drove up north about an hour to see the tulip fields!  There is really nothing like it!

Thanks to Scott for working at JetBlue so I had the chance to go, and for holding down the fort while we were away!