Nalle Fam Spring Celebration Weekend

Here's another catch-up post from last month.

Jacque and Asher came up to Mom and Dad's for a long weekend early in April, and we had lots of great time together. On Friday, of course, we had to dye eggs for our Spring Celebration egg hunt...

Here's the Ari-boy, who might be taller than Meg, and who lost his fourth tooth the moment we walked in the door that day.

And here's the cutest five-and-a-half year old I know:

Jacqua and her brown-eyed tintype, Aylenne:

Beautiful girlies!

Eggs finished, we went outside and enjoyed Nana's front yard.

Don't they look quite like cousins?

Does she have a great smile, or what?

The next morning, we went to the National Arboretum and had a picnic brunch. Something about a picnic at breakfast time (as opposed to the typical lunch) struck me as insanely romantic. (Romantic as in Romanticism, not romantic like smoochin-your-fella-in-candle-light romantic.) We found a spot in this gigantic green meadow and spread our blankets. Spectacular clouds billowed their way across the wide open sky and bathed us alternately in sun and shade. We ate fruit and baked eggs and muffins, and the kids ran around and explored a nearby garden. It was... you know, mildly pleasurable.

Okay, okay, it was to die for.

I didn't get many pictures, but this was our view of the National Capitol Columns. Kind of dramatic, no? See where I was with the Romance thing?

This is my babe and our littlest love...

...and this is a blurry close-up of the littlest love.

After our idyllic meal we took a short walk, and then our party broke up. Dad, Dave and Asher took Ari and Matthew off to see a Nats/Braves game (the Braves are Asher's fave, and the Nats are, obviously, our home team). Mom, Jacque, Lena and I took the little girls and the babies home for naps, playtime, and girl talk. Later that day we had our egg hunt (during which time I was busy giving clues and took no pictures). And the next morning my kids decided they were so exhausted from so much cousin fun that they would all have to have colds, and we missed church, which broke Aylenne's heart because she expected Esme to be in her class and instead she was all alone in a sea of strange three-year-old faces, and I felt terrible, and this is now the world's longest sentence, so I'll stop.

But other than that, it was a lovely, lovely weekend with definitely cherish-able memories. And this is my way of cherishing them. Thanks, Don Nalle famerlees! Love you all so much!