I'm back.  Let's catch up, shall we?

Elle had her very first Easter egg hunt a few weekends ago and this was reason too many to count why I just adore this neighborhood and community.  An egg hunt on the beach was perfection.

We braved the rough winds and managed to spend most of the morning out here until...

...a piece of sand scratched my cornea.  Of course, only situations like this happen while Nick is away.   This is a horrible, seemingly distorted picture of myself but I still can't believe how incredibly swollen my eye became in such a short amount of time.  Thankful for a friend who just happened to have antibiotic eye drops on hand so I didn't have to spend the night in Urgent Care.  

Only a few days later, I became pretty ill with flu like symptoms and begged Nick to fly home from OK, which I knew wasn't going to happen.  Taking care of three kids alone is exhausting, add in a fever and chills and I was pretty worthless.  I recovered quickly enough to celebrate Easter with confetti eggs...

...and we all got to love on sweet baby Evelyn.  

The following week was Audrey's spring break and since Nick couldn't take off, we had to stay local. All of our friends headed out of town, womp womp, but we managed to stay incredibly busy with the Children's Museum of Richmond where Audrey was addicted to this cool piano-type of chimes built into the ground.  

I love spending our days with friends, but sometimes, outings with just myself and the kids is needed.   We have good memories from this day, even though the entire Richmond school district appeared to have chosen this museum for a field trip.  The amount of kids and chaos was insane but we snagged some free passes for the "inconvenience" ha, and will gladly go back.  

We also spent a spring break day at the Leesburg Animal Park and Audrey was obsessed with these little ponies.  

 

Getting through the two weeks of OFEC while sick came with a reward:  spending a kid-free weekend with my college roommates in DC. We rented an AirBnB in Alexandria, dined at delicious restaurants, drank too much wine, talked endlessly, went to a Burlesque (!) show, listened to live music at Hamilton's, attempted the Rooftop Club on the W hotel (then realized we are too old for the club scene), came home late and basically had a weekend where we recharged ourselves as mothers and women.  Much needed.  

Onto prepping for summer!  Audrey and Ethan both started swim lessons at Swim Kids and I now realize swimming is where their little hearts lie.  Which is great, because we will be doing a lot of that this summer. 

Audrey is amazing.  She has an interest in everything.  She loved her clay class at school and is now obsessed with creating clay objects whenever she has a free moment.  She is excelling with her academics, is determined and won't settle for less than perfect.  She has boundless energy, is incredibly outgoing, and wants nothing more than to cuddle her sister in the mornings.  

A sweet friend who owns a photography business posted on FB about the importance of moms being in the picture, whether its during pick up/drop off from school or simply getting a child out of the highchair.  Stop, and snap a picture to show a moment from your day.  Just be IN the picture.  So, I did.  I never approve of pictures of myself, but I'll let one slide to agree with her recommendation.