THE ITRI FAMILY

Scott's brother, Dan, and his cousin Jason both Graduated from BYU University this week. Which meant a week full of Itri fun.

Unfortunately, Scott and I were not available to actually see Dan and Jason walk with our own eyes because I had to take Crystal to school and pick her up, and Scott had a Dr. Appointment. So we had to wait outside to congratulate them and take pictures, which we did. (Sorry some of them turned out blurry, I can't make them bigger because it's embarrassing how blurry they are, but it is what it is)

Andy Reid's daughter was also graduating that day. He's a friend of Scott's family so when he saw all us Itri's he came over to say Hi and ask us how we are doing. (For my gal pals unfamiliar with sports, He's the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles football team. I didn't know that either until I got married into the Itri family, so don't feel bad.)

Jacob was a little grumpy because it was hot outside, and he was hungry and sleepy, but he cheered up enough for a picture.

Here are my wonderful In-laws, Nick and Margie. When I see how other people's in-laws can be, I am nothing but thankful for them and how great they are. (Margie also took all these pictures with my camera for this post since Jacob was being a handful.)

...Here is my darling family

We all went to eat at Cafe Rio afterwords

It was a great day. Congratulations to Jason and Dan!!!

I love Easter. Love love love. I love Easter even more than Christmas. Why? Because the cold weather is mostly gone, the sun is out, birds are chirping, grass is green again, blossoms are growing on trees, even the air feels brand new. Not only does it symbolically remind me of the resurrection with nature coming back to life, but I'm just a happier person when the sun is out. Scott is convinced that I have that seasonal disorder where you start getting depressed when the weather is bad. I blame my Latin blood. I need sun. I am a weirdo who will go outside and just sit in the sun for no reason except to feel it on my skin. It's therapeutic for me. Also who can forget the joy of a Cadbury egg on Easter? Those morsels of awesome deliciousness are extremely high on my priority list this time of year.
Anyway Easter is my favorite holiday for so many reasons, for religious and non-religious reasons.
Unfortunately if you scroll back on my blog to last year's Easter the only picture I took was of the kids Easter baskets. Why? Because I was trying to survive my first trimester of pregnancy and the only thing that mattered at the time was trying not to throw up.
I hope I made up for it with this year's pictures.

On Saturday morning my neighborhood/ward had an Easter Egg hunt in the park right behind my house. If it were anywhere else, I probably wouldn't have gone, but it was really easy to wake up and go out the back gate. Also, I felt obligated to keep the kids busy because Scott was working yet again for tax season. (This is the part where I repeat over and over to myself in my head that we are lucky that he has such a good job in this economy and I try not to be negative.)

Seth actually went nuts, he took off like a bullet and filled his basket with way too many eggs. Occasionally when he wasn't looking I would take some eggs out of his basket and toss them into the grass for the other kids...I didn't want to be one of those parents that get crazy competitive over an Easter egg hunt, and I didn't want my kids to be one of those kids that push smaller ones out of the way so they can greedily hoard their little buckets full of toys and sugar. Yeah, that's the other thing, I didn't want my kids to come home with a mountain of candy. So I told them both that they needed to get seven eggs, and then we would eat breakfast, which was provided at the activity. Overall, they had a blast. My only complaint was that it was so early in the morning that it was freezing, (even though it got hot by the afternoon) and I had to stand in line with three kids and somehow get them all plates of food by myself because I was husband-less. Serving three plates of food with a baby in your arms and two clumsy kids who like to drop things should be a requirement to get into a heavy duty circus act...if you succeed. When I try and do it, it's just pathetic.

ANYWAY here are the pics of that event:

Later that afternoon we went to my parents house so that we could have company while we colored Easter eggs. My brother's son, Issac was there at the same time, and they had a blast playing with him while the eggs were boiling.

Let the egg coloring begin! I didn't want Seth to ruin his shirt, so he's shirtless int he pic below, which of course means he had to show off his guns.

Later that same evening, Scott was able to make it home by 7:30 so we had some more family (from his side this time) over and we all made ourselves pizzas. We started doing this a couple of years ago, everyone brings their own dough and pizza toppings (sometimes we share) and we all make our own personal pizzas for dinner together. I like this little tradition because Scott and I did it with a group of friends when we first started dating...and the first time we held hand. I don't remember, but Scott claims that I was the aggressor and grabbed his hand first. Figures. :)

After everybody left the "Easter Bunny" left out some goodies for Crystal and Seth. He figured Jake could wait till next year when he is old enough to realize that objects exist.