Easter weekend 2011

We had a beautiful Easter weekend, of course spent with our wonderful families. It was so nice to be home in arizona this year! Halle got sick on friday, my poor baby...but thankfully she recovered in time on saturday to dye some Easter eggs and was well enough to enjoy Easter on sunday. Costa was SO excited to dye eggs and had been anticipating this for weeks now since Auntie Nisa bought us this awesome dye kit. So, of course him and I started friday night. Crew buddy had fun watching us in his bumbo seat!

Look at these cute guys Costa came up with on his own! I thought they were so cute! Little dinosaurs!

My poor baby she wasn't feeling good
The egg daddy made...pretty cute!

It was an extra SPECIAL Easter this year, because Uncle Alex was Confirmed and also received his First Holy Communion as well on Easter Vigil, Saturday. I was honored he asked me to be his sponsor! How special! I truly felt so honored that he wanted me of all people he could have asked! We are so proud of Alex for taking this step with his faith and are so excited for all the graces he will receive because he did! Congratulations Alex...we love you and will always be here for you! After the ceremony, we went to dinner at Oregano's to celebrate! It was a late night...Hallers was a trooper! Especially, since she'd been sick the day before. We decided to leave Costa and Crew at home with Grandma and Papa, too late for the little buddies.




Easter morning was so fun! The kids were SO excited for the Easter bunny to come to our house! They had fun finding their baskets and then they were super cute to find out the bunny had left something for our little Crew. They thought that was pretty cool! Of course, the bunny wouldn't forget our little Crew buddy! It's so much fun to see the excitement in their little eyes and voices! I just love it, it's the best. Costa is really cute these days and always says to me when he's excited for something..."Aren't you so excited mom?" So adorable.



After the excitement of the baskets, it was nice to relax for a little bit since we had gone to church the night before. Although Church was 3 hours long the night before, I must say I did enjoy sipping coffee with my husband Easter morning watching the kids excitement, not rushing to get everybody ready for church! After a little bit we did get ready and headed over to Papa and Grandma Contreras' house for brunch and an Easter egg hunt. This year we put money in the eggs, like we do at my families hunt. The kids are older now, so that's super fun for them to see who gets the eggs with the most money! We had a great morning but we were really missing the Mersiowsky cousins!


Grandma helped Hallers find some eggs!



Our baby's first Easter! Four months old


Cousin Niko


Cousin Gabey



Look who found a five dollar bill! Go Cost!

Last stop that afternoon was Poppie and Gg's house for dinner, swimming and another egg hunt! So much fun! I LOVE being home for holidays!

The kids put on a concert for the adults at the end of the night...Costa put off some pretty awesome dance moves! They were great!

Celebrating 8 years

Today, Erik and I celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary! God has blessed us big time so far! Crazy it's been a year ago exactly today we found out we were going to have another baby! Time flies. We have an amazing life together and are loving every minute of it. I thank God for making him mine everyday. Unfortunately, he had to leave for Guadalajara yesterday so we didn't actually get to be together today....but we did go out for a little bit last saturday to celebrate. We don't get the opportunity to go out very often these days, but Papa and Grandma Contreras were nice enough to watch the kids for us so we could get out for a little bit. We decided to invite a few people to join us since we'll be heading to New York soon and ended up going to Fieldhouse with Artie, Kristi and Anthony. We had fun catching up and even did a little dancing. It was fun! Cheers babe! I love you more than you will ever know and here's to many more beautiful years together! Hopefully, not spent apart!
Oh, and I wanted to remember Erik's post to me on facebook...It was kinda cute:
"Happy Anniversary babe! 8 years, 3 kids, couple houses and one awesome adventure;)"

My mom, Luke, Les and Brooks joined Halle, Costa, Crew and I for dinner at Kona Grill to celebrate with me since I was missing my hubby on our anniversary. Thanks girls! It kinda works out that Les is husbandless too these days...haha...sorry Alex but it's kinda worked out in my favor! It was a fun night and so thankful I have you here to hang out when Erik's gone.....you are amazing and I'm so lucky to have such a great family! I love you guys so much!

Saying goodbye...again

Erik left today back to Guadalajara for his last month before graduation. Of course, I cried 2 times this morning before we even go to the airport to drop him off. It just bums me out big time when he leaves....just not the same around here when daddy's gone. I feel bad because as much as I try to hide it when we say good-bye I just can't stop the tears from flowing and today Halle started crying too. Poor baby. As soon as I looked back and saw her sad face I quickly dried up my tears and tried to reassure that it would go by quickly and daddy would be back soon. I asked them what would be a fun thing for us to do today? The mall, of course....always takes our mind off daddy being gone, for a little bit.

While we were at the mall Erik called and said that he could get bumped and might not be leaving until 6PM. Yeah! We could spend the day with him! As much as I hated the thought of saying good-bye again, I know us and anymore time we could have together we would take advantage of. He called back just as we were leaving and said "come get me.".....off we went back to the airport.

We picked him up and headed over to Mill Ave. to grab some lunch. It was such a beautiful day today, so somewhere with a patio was a must. Erik suggested Big Fat Greek, sounded delicious to me! We enjoyed an awesome lunch and even better we were together on this gorgeous sunday afternoon. After lunch we had some time so we decided to walk around. We ended up at the beach park where they were having a Greek Festival. So fun! Why don't we do this stuff more often? Costa and I went on the ferris wheel and Halle and Costa went on the "Gogogator" roller coaster. We had to talk Halle into going on the ride, telling her over and over that she would have fun. Little stinker! She finally agreed and of course wanted to go again! The kids enjoyed a "baklava" sundae while Erik and I enjoyed a nice cold brewski. SO thankful for USAIRWAYS giving us a $350 voucher, but even better a little more time together before he leaves for a month! I'm so sad I didn't have my camera to take some pictures...bummer. I wasn't expecting such a sad day to turn into a super fun day! We love you babe....see you in a month!