The family excursion to Carlsbad was fantastic, even with me navigating.  I got side-tracked reading a book on the way up(I know, I’m a stellar navigator) and forget to tell Will to turn so we ended up in San Onofre before I glanced up and realized we had gone WAY too far!!  Either way, we made it to the Ranuculus, which is where I wanted to be and the kids LOVED it!!  Who knew my kids would last over an hour and a half looking at flowers?  The sweet pea maze you see Annie lost in was great!  I even got to tap my knowledge of Utah corn mazes to get us out.  For the record, it is way more fun getting lost in a maze of flowers than a maze of corn.

The kids got these little passports to stamp at all the stations and they had a Santa’s village playground the kids could play on so the kids were loving life.  They even had a “Sluicing for Gems” station.  OH and the Kettle Corn contained my own little pieces of heaven.  Breathing in, I can still smell and taste the salty sweet flavor accompanied by that light crunch.  What a tasty way to get fat!

6:30 am…doughnut pick-up…7:00 baking Quiche…7:30 hiding somewhere between 600 and 700 eggs(I lost count after awhile).  8:00…the kids begin hunting.  Even though we have a smaller backyard this year, it was actually easier to hid everything because of the plethora of plants and pots.  Obviously, both pictures are post hunting.  I was so sidetracked enjoying everyone’s company that I forgot to take pictures.  These are courtesy of Jessica.

When everything was said and done, Annie walked away with 7 eggs.  Yes, this was on purpose.  She was finding eggs and putting them in other people’s baskets or just sitting on the sidelines enjoying the spoils of the eggs she already found.

This was the first year I let the kids dye their own eggs.  They plopped, waited, scooped and glittered.  I appreciate the continuing road to independence.  All I had to do was mix the dye.

I love being together with just my family.  A couple of days ago we enjoyed Sea World together.  Despite the pictures it was a very calm and quiet day.  The most event we had was at the 4-d theatre.  Grace was in the Bjorn asleep and I forgot they sprayed water from the seats in front and above.  I blocked the 1st spray, but missed the last 3.  The poor thing got soaked and kept me dry.  That was not one of my best mom moments.

Okay we have been moved in for several months and I totally forgot to blog about the house.  Admittedly I have had other things on my mind lately, but better late than never, right?  People keep asking me about the house.  I think I will probably do it in two parts to reduce the number of pictures in the blog.  Even then I got a little carried away.

So far we have been lucky that the kids haven’t tried to climb over the rail onto the ledges.  Hudson does love sliding down the rail though and Annie has only tried to jump off the balcony part once.  I think my scream has deterred any further attempts.

We love, love, love the house.  With so much moving in my life we unpacked everything in about 72 hours and I haven’t unpacked anything since.  Most things have a home, but there are still the 2 token boxes in the garage full of junk I just dumped extras into on the last day of the move.  Those are always the last ones unpacked.  I supposed if I have lived without them this long and they aren’t Christmas decorations I should really just chuck the box.  I haven’t missed anything so far…

I know I still have Annie’s purple chair in my room, but it doesn’t fit in her’s without causing problems.  It just becomes another stepping stone for disaster.

Once again I love that the vanity area offers separate areas for Will and I to keep our OWN stuff.  What can I say…it keeps the marriage much happier.

Annie’s room is a little pinkified this time around, but she will only be a little girl for so long so we went with it…

It’s amazing the things one notices after taking pictures of the different rooms in a house.  I usually walk into Hudson’s room and notice the mess on the train table or the floor.  It wasn’t until just now I noticed one of the clocks slightly off.  I can’t help offering a second thought  to the huge booms and crashes I heard last week.  I was assured everything was fine and under control…yeah, fine….