Easter in Ohio

I know, you may have thought that we dropped off the planet. The last month or so has been quite busy with travel, family, friends, baby and work. As many of you know, I'm now the Children's Ministry Director at our church so nap times are pretty full with VBS prep, finding summer Sunday School teachers, cleaning my house and cooking dinner. Evie has grown a lot in the last month though and is getting SO big and fun! I'll try to get everything caught up. :)
Last month we drove up to Ohio for Easter with much of my extended family. It was a wonderful time with everyone. Evelyn loved hanging out with Grandpa, Nana, aunts, cousins, and great-grandparents. (Yes, Caroline is taller than me now - UGH! ;))

Bonding time with cousins...

Meeting Nana Ruth and Papop...
Loving Aunt Katie...

It wouldn't be Easter without the big Easter egg hunt! Once you become a parent yourself you stop finding eggs and you become part of the hiding crew. This was my first Easter hiding instead of finding. Since I still got Evie's candy, I didn't mind too much and had fun stumping my siblings and cousins. ;)
Everyone is ready!

And they're off!

Evie didn't quite get the whole egg hunt this year, but I'm sure she'll be an expert next year. ;) She did like the brightly colored eggs, but they were too round for her to pick up with one hand, so she lost interest pretty quickly.

Evelyn was so pleased with the new outfits and book she got as her egg hunt prize! Thanks, Nana!
Uncle Mark is a gourmet Italian cook so he taught everyone to make homemade pasta and ravioli Saturday afternoon. It was a lot of fun and SOOO good. Nathan and I were excited that we got to bring some of the ravs home with us. They made a great birthday dinner the next week! :) 
The finished product! We can't wait for Aunt Sue and Uncle Mark to come visit us in the fall and teach us how to make more great Italian food (hint hint ;)).
Here's everyone at the table for Easter dinner Saturday night. We missed Chris, Kate, Lana and the Stouts, but it was so fun having this many of us all together!
A few other Easter highlights include:
Going to Main Street Cupcakes with Nana, Katie, Nathan and Caroline. The line was out the door when we got there 4 minutes after it opened! Thankfully flavors didn't start selling out until right after we made it through the line! They were GOOD cupcakes too! None of the pretty-but-actually-not-very-good going on here!

Katie and Emily playing their duet from Katie's Senior recital, and then Katie, Emily and Caroline playing their *wonderful* trio ;):
Hanging out and playing games:
Going to church all together Easter morning. Evie loved both her new Easter dress and her Easter present from Nana and Grandpa:

Celebrating my birthday with my family again!

Sorry for the long post and all these pictures - it was just a very fun and very full weekend!

DC Part IV: Evelyn Admires the Cherry Blossoms (last DC post)

After our White House garden tour we did make it to the street festival which was interesting, but not a highlight. Evie liked watching the people and the food was good, but it was pretty crowded and the entertainment a teensy bit funny.

So instead of hanging around longer, Rachel, Amy, Joshua and us Mortiers headed to the tidal basin to enjoy what was left of the blossoms (sadly we missed the peak by a week or two). Despite missing the peak, it was still beautiful.

(We thought it a little too cold to go out on the water, but a good number of people disagreed :))
It was a super fun day trip and we are so glad that we were able to go! Thanks, Laura and Daniel, for organizing it!!

DC Part III: Evelyn Visits Sasha and Malia

A highlight of our DC trip was the spontaneous tour of the White House gardens!

We *thought* that this was as close as we'd be able to get to the White House....
However, while we were on our way to the Japanese street festival and a lady outside the White House asked if I'd like to tour the White House Gardens. Apparently once or twice a year they open the gardens up to the public and you can tour them for free as long as you have a ticket. Our whole group decided that we'd go for it! It was so fun to be able to get so close, look at the gardens and enjoy the live music courtesy of the Marine Corps jazz band and brass band.
As you can see, Evie especially was thrilled.
Evelyn loved hanging out with Miss Laura, Miss Rachel and Joshua.
Karen and I thought the tulip tree was beautiful. :) Behind us is where the famous Beer Summit took place as well. That's not why we took this picture here though. ;)
Nice views from the front porch area (you can see the Washington Monument, Jefferson Monument, and the White House fountain):

Down by the fountain:

The pictures of Evie with Sasha and Malia's swing set and the crazy well armed security guards are on Nathan's phone so I'll have to post them later. :)