Easter Vacations and Visitors

Savannah and I have returned from the land of enchantment... or Albuquerque, New Mexico. My mom picked us up last Monday and we headed to my sister's house for a week of playing with cousins and scrapbooking. We ended up doing a lot of playing and a little bit of scrapping, but all in all we had an awesome time. It was so fun to have all of Savvy's cousins there to play with... Amanda and Kate came from Utah; Jodi and Kaiya came from Texas; Grandma and Uncle Dan came from California and of course Steph's three boys were happy to house all of us. We left all of the dads at home-- it's a good thing Dan came along to babysit!

Savvy loved playing outside. I can't wait until the day that I have a backyard that she can play in whenever she wants. She probably spent a few hours in the sandbox. Grandpa flew in for the last day to play with all of his grandkids. Savannah and Andrew enjoyed flying around the house with him.

Uncle Dan was left home to babysit 5 kids at once one day... he did an awesome job. When we came home from shopping, not a single kid was crying or upset.

Here's the 2006 trio... Andrew was born in May, Kaiya in June, and Savvy in September. Savvy's taller and bigger than both of them... and she sure loved playing with them.

Here's the best scrapbooking store in the world... everything is free. We would just share all of our supplies, so everyone had awesome pages. You can't see it, but the wall to the left was lined completely with boxes of paper. And notice TWO cricuts and all the cartridges you can dream of in the background.

All of the mom's would sit down for some serious scrapping after all the kids went to bed each night, which meant that in the morning, the moms were pretty tired when their kids were ready to play. From left to right, there's Steph sleeping, Jodi sleeping, then Kaiya, Andrew, Savvy, Uncle Dan, and Zach awake and watching cartoons, and finally me sleeping. Scrapbooking must be hard work!

We had a grand Easter egg hunt with all of the cousins on the last day. Savvy got the hang of it really quickly and got some good stuff to share with mom.I'm pretty sure it's impossible to get 6 kids smiling for a picture with grandma. We tried. Savvy didn't do too bad, but she had a bag of snacks through the whole photo shoot.

Here's the trio again... Savvy's enjoyed her mom singing "Popcorn Popping" while Kaiya is yelling "No Popcorn." Andrew is just waiting around until he doesn't have to take anymore pictures.

I think there was more sand on Savvy than in the sandbox by the end of the day.

We came home on Friday night, only to welcome more visitors on Saturday. Eric's parents drove down to Phoenix to see Savvy for the weekend. We had a great time swimming and playing with them. Grandma Nielsen got this adorable dress for Savannah.

Family picture... pretty good I think. Too bad it will be out of date in a few weeks (hopefully sooner than later). Savvy has become quite the cuddle-bug lately. I love it, except for when we cuddle for so long that I lose circulation in my legs. She had a rough time in nursery during church, so by the end of the 3 hour block, she was exhausted. I just think she looks so cute cuddling with her daddy. We had another easter egg hunt before dinner on Sunday which Savannah thoroughly enjoyed. She would eye one particular egg at a time and walk straight for it... passing 3 or 4 eggs on the way. She was pretty determined. Grandpa Nielsen kept walking behind her snatching eggs out of her basket while she wasn't looking because there were too many eggs. She is still enjoying all of the candy she got from it. So now our house is quiet and lonely. Eric is back to school and work and it's just Savvy and me at home. I am officially letting myself start to "nest." I have been stopping myself for the past few weeks, but now with only 29 days to go, I have started working! Today I am washing all of the baby clothes and cleaning out Savvy's closet (which is basically my storage closet). By rearranging stuff in her room now, I'm hoping that she'll be used to as many changes as possible before the big one comes. Eric just rolls his eyes at me and tells me to not work too hard... he's worried I'll put myself into labor like last time. Until then, you can find me with the vacuum and dust rag.