Charlie's hunting trip

Beth and I bravely packed up four kiddos (ours + 1 I was babysitting) and went to a nearby park for a belated (Easter) egg hunt on one of those beautiful sunny days last week. What a gift this weather has been! I had to keep reminding myself that it is still April--as I'm unpacking my summer clothes and getting out the Elmo sprinkler for the yard. Anyway, the egg hunt was fun, but not so much a hunt really. The adults who put on the event hid a bunch of the eggs around the trees and stuff and then dumped about 20 of them in the middle of an open area. So, when you point a toddler toward this area, what's he going to do? Ignore the huge pile of colored eggs right out in the open and hunt for eggs? Uh, no. Before I knew it, Charlie was sitting down in the grass, eating a Reese's Peanut Butter cup wrapper and all. Cousin Aaron (above) got a little more into the hunting part. He was so excited to find an egg inside a tree knot (a "bird's nest" he called it).

Here is sweet Natalie with her eggs. I "babysit" 4-year-old Natalie as part of our co-op where we trade child care each week. She is so helpful and independent, it's not really babysitting! She is very entertaining too and always has interesting facts and figures to share--very into National Geographic lately. On this particular day, she was telling me about how daddy polar bears can't live in the zoo with their young because they will eat them. Good to know.