Easter Weekend Adventures

Easter weekend began with the traditional coloring of eggs

 Axel and the boys were very proud of their rainbow eggs

The night before Easter Axel found the basket's hiding place and suggested that I put it down lower so the Easter Bunny could reach it - whoops!  Luckily the Easter Bunny still found it and filled it with goodies by the morning.

Later we went to Taj's house for a egg hunting party.  The boys made both silly and "serious" faces for the camera.

Taj showed us his cool tree house and we explored the canyon together

Of course we had to take a selfie there with our new buddy! 

Pirate (balloon) Attack

A balloon guy visited our table at the restaurant.  The result was some very fancy pirate hats . . .

 . . . with accompanying swords.

After lunch Ryland makes surprise attack!

Axel counters with a swift parry.

Both pirates bravely defend themselves with skillful swordsmanship 

. . . until someone's balloon inevitably pops :(

Soccer Team Picture

Go Play Outside

I love it that Axel and the neighbor kid play together outside on a random Tuesday afternoon.  Reminds me of the good old days when I used to be part of a little neighborhood gang of kids playing in the streets.  Nowadays it seems like we have too many "play dates" and kids never get that unstructured time to just "go play outside".

Here the boys found the most dangerous part of the ledge to perch on

Then they slid down through the dirt, which was SO hilarious to them.  

(but later he complained he got too much dirt in his underwear)

Finally there's nothing more fun than Throwing Dirt . . priceless

Bear Claws

Karsten used his new Bear Claw tool to shred homemade pulled pork . . . yummmmm!

4th Birthday

The birthday cake always draws a big crowd

make a wish....

Birthday Police: "move along folks there's nothing to see here.. "

Everyone is going to get their cake and eat it too

Back Yard . . Bounce . . .BBQ . .  

what a perfect combination!

the boys showed off some fancy footwork with a little scrimmage

Later in the evening, Axel gets caught opening up his presents "unsupervised" with the help of his friends - we'll never know who gave us all the cool stuff, but yeah, thanks everyone!