What’s a month here or there?

In our world, not much ;) Sure, Ella’s breaking milestones on a regular basis, as first year babies do (thank goodness), but that’s no excuse for failing to capture the FUN in it all!

I’m sure you already know this, but my sister is the GOOD twin. In fact, she is SO GOOD, she’s been out to visit us in LA 3 (yes, THREE) times since Ella was born – twice with her family! And it’s not a short trip… There’s nothing quite like family, so I feel super lucky to have such a wonderful one!

Anyway, her last trip out was Easter, with her whole family in tow. We are thrilled Zoe’s fabulous cousins chose to spend their spring holiday break with us (we know you have options!) and what a fun time for kids: EASTER!

I think this picture sums it up:

Notice my sister’s lovely children, with camera in mind, being good sports about the whole thing. Zoe, not so much. Ella? Doing the one thing we’d prefer she not do on that blanket: try to eat Easter eggs… With coaxing, we got THIS picture:

(notice my sister’s children equally lovely and helpful – it only took a seven shots to get this, and they were smiling in every single one of them…)

We hid 50 eggs for our Easter Egg hunt, taking care to hide them at levels (and degrees of difficulty) matching our 4, 8 and 12 year old audience. The kids did a great job, with Spencer scrambling to fill his basket with as many eggs as possible and Sophie generously helping Zoe while she found eggs for herself (now THAT’s a good kid). Unfortunately, when the kids hid the eggs for us dumb adults (I will not clarify age ranges…), there was a little less diligence.

First, pretty sure they went for “hardest place to find it ever” level of difficulty, oh, and then forgot where some of them were hid (or else didn’t watch us carefully as we found the eggs). Regardless, it took four of us more than twice as long to find those 50 eggs. Makes you feel pretty darn smart, let me tell you.

Overall, we had an action-packed visit, complete with a trip to the “Magical History Museum” and the Discovery Cube science museum, where Ella dropped a photo bomb on Sophie, who had just achieved Super Shopper status:

And Zoe showed us what a mountain lion really looks like:

We even made homemade ice cream, though, as often happens, the kids got a little LESS interested in the churning than they were when we started. Oh, Cousin Time is fabulous. If only they lived closer, who knows what we might do next?!! (Don’t say Disneyland. Zoe just made the comment that she “needed” to go there since she hadn’t been there in “forever”…)

Thanks again to the Lieths for choosing Chez Johnson for your spring break travel! We’re open 365 days a year ;)