Easter Festivities 2017

Easter weekend was a blast this year, minus the disappointment of Brielle being in a cast and not able to walk and participate in the egg hunts. The weather cooperated for us all weekend, which is really rare here!

Saturday, April 15th we kicked off the Easter fun with a community egg hunt at Bob's Corn with our friends the Yanceys, Jason's parents and my dad. We went here last year and loved it, so we decided to make this a tradition each year. The kids enjoyed all the activities they had to offer at the farm...such as the bounce houses, face painting, cow train, tractor hay ride and the egg hunt of course. Last year Hailey found the golden egg that won her a giant basket full of fun goodies. Believe it or not this year she managed to find the golden egg again and won another giant basket!!!

Hailey refused to ride the cow train without me, so we squished in

Cammy loves riding the cow train!

Fun for all!

Cammy and Hailey walking with their buddy Penelope

Ready for their egg hunts

Hailey insisted on having Jason go out with her to make sure the Easter Bunny wouldn't come near her

The special golden egg!!!

Cammy is such a pro at this!

Her findings

Hailey's golden egg winnings

We love doing this with the Yanceys every year!

Our little family...minus Brielle

Penelope and Cammy love each other

Getting her face painted like a bunny

Tractor hay ride

While we were at the egg hunt at the farm my amazing mom volunteered to stay back with the newly casted Brielle so we could enjoy our time with the big girls a little bit more. She decided to take Brielle on a little walk towards the high school down the street and stumbled upon the community egg hunt going on there. We had gone there before, but she had forgotten about it, so it just happened to be good timing when she got there. She helped Brielle do her egg hunt so she could feel like a part of the Easter activities as well.

Waiting for her egg hunt to begin

She found some eggs with Grams' help!

Later that day me, my mom and my mother-in-law went off to a little girls shopping thing. We left the kids with the boys and told them to do the egg coloring so it would just be done. 12 eggs later and a lot of glitter and the eggs turned out great!

The girls ready to dye some eggs

Glittery eggs

Daddy and the girls

Grandpa Scott and the girls

The next day, April 16th, was Easter! The girls were so excited to see what the Easter Bunny left for them in their baskets. After going through their baskets, we then headed off to church for an Easter church service with both sets of grandparents. After church we came home and started prepping for hosting dinner. We had a few friends, Jason's aunt Faith and our families all together this year. The kids had a blast doing the egg hunt in our backyard trying to find over 100 eggs that we hid. It was definitely a special year being with both sets of our parents and having some of our close friends with us as well.

The girls with their baskets

The Easter Bunny was here!

Easter family photo after church

The girls in their Easter dresses

Me and the girls

The girls ready to find eggs

Gotta get one with the one boy, Brian

Hailey finding eggs

The kids searching the backyard for eggs

Brielle finding eggs with daddy's help

Cammy found an egg up high

Our group of friends

(us, Meghan, Matt and Brian and Lindsey, Nick and Penelope)

As you can probably see by some of the mommy bellies, our group will grow by 2 more kiddos for next year's celebration (don't worry, none of those bellies are mine)!

Broken Bones

Jason and I always joked with each other that our third kid would be the one to break a bone, get stitches, go to the ER or something along those lines. Brielle has always been a little daredevil climbing on everything no matter how many times we tell her no. And look at that...we were right (it just didn't happen in quite the way we envisioned it).

It was April 9th. The first nice day after what felt like a week of rain and bad weather. So we were antsy to just get out and get some fresh air and have some family time. So we went to Silver Lake park nearby and met Jason's parents there. We had played for about an hour, walked down to the water to see the ducks and then came back up to play a little more and get ready to go home. I wanted to have a little fun with the girls (since I feel like for the past year I haven't been able to get in there and play like I wanted to). I followed them around the play structure and then decided it would be a grand idea to take Brielle down one of the shorter tunnel slides with me since she wasn't going by herself. As we are laying back going down the slide she sticks her legs up in the air and the rubber on her shoe sole caught on the top of the slide and over extended her leg back. I didn't think anything of it until she was crying when we got out, holding her leg, and wouldn't stand or walk on it. I figured she just over extended it and it just needed time to shake out and she would be ok. So we left the park and headed home. Brielle is not one to cry too long, so the fact that she wouldn't really stop crying or holding her leg concerned us. I took her home and had her nap on me while Jason went out to lunch with the girls and his parents. By the time they got back we decided she needed to be seen by a doctor because she still wouldn't put any weight on it. So off to the walk-in clinic we went.

This is one of her favorite swings at the park

Cammy found a spot to watch the ducks from

G-ma and Grandpa with the girls

Brielle is not really a fan of doctors right now, so this was not a very fun visit for any of us, which also included an x-ray. After all was done, the doctor concluded that she did indeed have a buckle fracture on her right leg (the tibia to be exact). She needed to be splinted up until we could get in for an appt at Children's with a pediatric orthopedic doctor. My worst nightmare was coming true!

Leaving the walk-in with a giant splint

The splint was far from fun to deal with. She couldn't put any weight on it, no bath, needed to be carried everywhere and basically just needed to be careful with it until we could get it casted. 

Oh poor baby!

The stroller was the easiest place to put her

Trying to entertain a now non-mobile kid was hard

A Get Well balloon from Grams and Gramps and stroller rides from Cammy

2 days later we got an appt with Children's pediatric ortho dept and they were amazing! The doctor we worked with was so patient, nice and took the time to answer any questions we had about anything. He assured us that this was one of the most common reasons kids come in with broken bones, so that made us feel a little better. The nurses were amazing with trying to keep Brielle entertained and happy (although nothing really seemed to work, not even bubbles!). Getting her leg casted was horrific. It took about 3 of us to hold her still while the nurse casted her. I've never seen Brielle cry quite as much as I did during this appt. She got a FULL leg cast...just in time for Easter, ugh! The report could have been worse, but she was only going to have to be in that cast for 3 weeks. The doctor said she would walk after a while and much to my surprise (I really didn't think there was any way she would walk on that cast) she walked about a week and a half into having the cast on! Nothing would stop this kid and once she was walking, she was not to be stopped! She was climbing stools, couches, onto beds, etc.

A brand new Easter colored cast

Jason's work shirt was the inspiration for the cast color

It may look cute, but oh what a pain it was!

Not wasting time climbing on everything again

3 weeks felt like FOREVER! I could have never done it without the support and help from my parents and Jason's parents! Thank goodness they all happened to be here during this time! My back went back into horrible pain again just from carrying Brielle around so much. Jason's shoulder was back to hurting again and the grandparents were feeling the pains as well. Once she started walking it was a huge relief of pain for everyone!!! We missed giving her real baths and getting good nights sleep!

When that cast came off 3 weeks later, on May 2nd, it was such a nice feeling and despite what the doctor said about how she may not be walking for up to 2 weeks post cast removal, our determined little 17 month old was trying to walk a day later!! She still has a limp to her walk and drags her right leg a bunch, but we are hopeful that that will heal on it's own in time. Here's to no more cast! A broken leg is no joke in a kid!!!

Very tired after a tough cast removal appt...but it's gone!

It was so nice to finally dress her in different pants!!

A Mini Spring Break Getaway

Cammy's Spring Break was the first week in April this year. We didn't have any plans to go on any week long trip since we like to save up Jason's vacation time for our timeshare weeks in Lake Chelan throughout the year. So instead of going away for a big trip we stayed more local this time and took a 2 night trip to Great Wolf Lodge indoor waterpark, located only about 2 hours South from our house in Grand Mound, WA on April 2-4.

Welcome to Great Wolf Lodge!

It just so happened that right at this time, Jason's parents were making their way up to us in their 5th wheel and were able to stay at an RV park close to Great Wolf Lodge and join us there for one of the days. We did not tell the girls that they were coming. The most they knew was that we would see them as soon as we got back from our trip, so it was a really fun surprise to drive up to the RV park and see Scott and Glenda! The looks on the girls' faces were priceless!!

Great Wolf Lodge was a lot of fun! It's really a place that you could just stay one night and take advantage of all of the time they let you use the waterpark, but since I knew we would need a place for Brielle to nap during the day, it made sense to do 2 nights and have the room to go back to for naps on our full day at the waterpark. And our room was nothing short of fun for the kids because they got to stay in the "Wolf Den" that had bunk beds in their own private little cave.

The Wolf Den

Our little wolf pups ready for bed

Wolf pup Brielle wearing the ears you get upon arrival

I loved how this place catered to all of the different ages. It had a little animatronic show, storytime for the kids before bed, a few places to eat (and people went to the breakfast buffet in their jammies!) and a few other activities like glow in the dark mini golf and an arcade full of games. The waterpark itself was definitely geared towards all ages also. Brielle loved to just splash in the little kiddie area and walk around in the water there. Hailey seemed to stay more where Brielle played or the wave pool. And Cammy started off with her sisters, then ventured onto the beginner kid slides and eventually we were able to talk her into going with us on the big enclosed slides where you ride on tubes. For as hesitant as she was to go on them, I think we ended our trip with her going on them about 6 or more times.

Breakfast buffet in their jammies!

Watching the animatronics show before breakfast

Leap pad fun with daddy

Cammy and mommy in the hot tub

The little kid play area

Hailey loves the water!

Daddy and his girls

Mommy and the girls at the wave pool

Storytime from Cammy before bed

It's so fun to have a place like this in a driveable distance and I am sure we will be returning again soon. The girls were already planning their birthdays to be here!

I love a quiet ride home!