Easter celebrations

I hope that everyone had a truly wonderful Easter.  The haztwins most certainly did!

We woke up at our usual time and I told the kids to go wake Daddy and tell him that the Easter Bunny came so that we could go see what he brought.  Summie immediately asked "something pink?"... her usual question these days.  They went and told Jim to wake up and we all meandered downstairs.  They were very excited to see that he brought them each SUNGLASSES (Summer = pink Minnie Mouse, Cole = blue Nemo), a bathing suit, a mini color wonder book and markers, and the piece de resistance.... a toddler digital camera!  While they were both very excited by this gift... Summie is obsessed.  She carried it around the entire day, through meals and egg hunts.  As of today she has filled the memory at least 4 times. 
Mom-mom & Pop-pop stopped over for a bit of a visit with some more presents. 
Then it was off to Nonna & Poppy's for brunch!  We had a delicious meal with TONS of good food.  Got to see some special visitors.... Aunt Denise, Uncle Jimmie & Emilie (or Emi as the kids call her) and new baby Owen!  We also celebrated Kiernan's 2nd birthday with cupcakes... yummy!  Then it was outside for an egg hunt.  Summie decided that any blue eggs that she picked up or the ones that looked like sports balls needed to be given to the boys in exchange for their pink eggs.  Noah wasn't especially into this concept so she gave up on him and traded with her brother instead. 

After we finished up... it was off to Grandma & Grandpa's for dinner.  Dinner was great and then another egg hunt!  The kids had so much fun ALL DAY.   Once we were finished, we stopped at Mom-mom & Pop-pop's for a quick visit to wish Uncle Chris (or Kiss as they call him) a Happy Birthday!  The kids went last week for egg dying and an egg hunt there! 

We are so blessed to have so many wonderful family members.  I tend to get a bit overwhelmed with how we will fit everyone in and make everyone happy and not feel left out.  This year, I think I finally found the balance and did my best to go with the kids' flow and spread things out.  It went much more smoothly this time, which makes me very happy.  Maybe I'm finally figuring this out!

The tale of the broken washing machine...

Our saga began late Wednesday night or quite possibly very early Thursday morning when I arrived home from my SJMOMs (South Jersey Mothers of Multiples) meeting and headed to the basement to change the laundry, only to find that it was BROKEN.  Full of water and not wanting to spin at all.  Ugh... of course I'm never as caught up as I'd like to be with the laundry and with 2 year old twins the laundry just continues to pile up.  Especially with Cole starting to wear underwear at school now. 
Thursday, I had plans to go to my friend Katie's with the kids for dinner.  Another friend was there with her 3 year old daughter and once Summie & Cole warmed up to the situation, they had a blast playing together.  Unfortunately, I forgot the Cole had underwear on and he has not quite learned to ask to go so he had a bit of an accident.  I brought a load of laundry with me to do while we were there since I needed some things to hold us over until the weekend. 
Friday night we decided to go and buy a new washer when Jim arrived home from work.  Summer was really excited to go shopping for a washing machine and of course asked if we could get a pink one, but Cole decided he would rather stay home with Mom-mom and Pop-pop and they were quick to oblige his request.  Summer had a great time out with Mommy & Daddy for some alone shopping time. 

Saturday was consumed with traveling around to different family members' houses to do laundry and let the kids play.  In the morning we headed to Nonna & Poppy's house so that we could walk to the playground while the laundry washed.  Kate came with us to the park and boy did we have a great time.  They had so much fun running up and down the stairs and sliding down the slides.  After about a million times down the various slides we headed to the swings.  Summer was so excited on the swing that she happily squealed "Mommy look at me... I'm flying!"  Cole tells everyone when asked about the swings that he "fell down two times".  Poor guy :(  Oh and Summie was quite the fashionista in a grey dress with colorful polka dots, black leggings, pink Mickey crocs and non other than a cheetah print fur (faux) coat un-zipped of course! What the people in the park must have thought about the mother that allowed her out of the house like that :)
We had lunch before leaving and Cole followed Poppy around like a little puppy.  It was so cute!  He wanted to sit down right next to him and watch everything that he did.  Giggling when he thought things were funny. 
We headed home for a nap and then went to Mom-mom & Pop-pop's for dinner and more laundry.  The kids have their own room here with lots of toys so they had a ball playing and eating all of Mom-mom's treats.  Our new washer is to be delivered on Wednesday and I am so excited for it to come!  Hopefully this will be the end of our laundry saga, but we made the best of it and tried to have fun in the process.

A visit with Emi...

In my post vacation blur... I completely forgot to write about our stop in North Carolina on our way home from Mickey's House.  My Aunt Denise, Uncle Jimmie & cousin Emilie moved from Georgia to North Carolina a few years ago and when I mapquested how far off our route home they were... I was so excited that it wasn't far at all!  We arrived around dinner time so unfortunately didn't have too much time to spend with them and my uncle was away on business so we couldn't see him, but it was still nice. 

Summie & Cole always love to see Emi and she always does a great job playing with them.  Jim had bought the kids boxes of Mickey books on the last day of our trip and they decided to pull these out for Emi to read to them.  I have rarely seen the kids fight over one person's attention (well except Mommy's), and it was really so cute.  Cole jumped right into Emi's lap with a book and as she read to him, Summie decided that it was not going to be okay for her to just sit on the floor next to them and hear the same book.  She went to get her own book and stood oh about 10 feet away from them staring and pouting as she waited for her turn.  After dinner and some books the kids went to bed and Jim fell asleep on the couch.  This left the girls up to chat and catch up, which was great since we don't get to see each other too often.

The next morning we got up and had a great breakfast and the kids got some more time to play with Emi before we left.  Look at this fun they had...