Easter Awesomeness

Easter always seems to sneak up on me. Even this year, when it was so late, it had that revelation a week or so before the big day that it was a comin' and fast. Luckily, our neighborhood has a yearly egg roll party that all I have to do is show up to with my brood in tow. It's delightfully easy.


Because there are a limited number of eggs, the kids are only supposed to have a dozen each. The boys ran straight out of the gate gathering as many as they could lay their little hands upon. Which ended up being closer to twenty. So, we threw some back. Sam figured out that he could switch out the eggs in his bag for the new eggs on the ground, which kept the magic alive for him.


I wanted to take a nice photo of the kids for Easter. I wanted them to wear these brown shirts. Ben would only do it if he could wear the striped shirt he picked out underneath. He kept trying to take it off before the picture was taken.


The boys are trying to help calm Charlotte down in this picture.


And have succeeded here.


Sam managed to keep Charlotte happy as a clam by giving her his (most likely grimy, dirty) finger to suck on. He is such a sweet, little guy.


This is how Charlotte travels most of the time, strapped to one of us, bobbing her head about, looking at everyone and being generally fawned over. She really is a charmer.


After we had hunted out our eggs (they're just laying on the grass, so it's not terribly difficult) and sat about for a while, Ben saw a friend of his with a face painting and wanted to get one. In the line he said he wanted a dragon across his face.


Then at the last minute he changed it to a skull. Ya, know, to stay with the spirit of the holiday. It rocked.


Sam saw it and decided he should get one too.



His is a skeleton comet. Awesomeness.


These are the baskets for the boys. There wasn't much rhyme or reason to them this year. Just some things. I did manage to make a puzzle ball for Charlotte, though. And it's very neat. I think she'll like it when she has more control over her hands.

Here are some Easter photos of Charlotte and me in our purpley best. And one of Ben's purpley best as well.







Yes, we are so cute. Happy Easter!

Easter Awesomeness

Easter! I love Easter. I really do. It's probably tied as my second favorite holiday. I've had Easter basket preparations in the works for some time now. I started putting the baskets together about a month ago.

We told Ben and Sam the Easter story for our last FHE. We had those little cutout pictures of the empty tomb and a rock to roll over it. And a picture of Jesus of course. We rolled it back and forth over the tomb. The boys thought it was awesome. And they've been talking about Jesus being alive all week. And about the rock. That was one of the best parts.

Now, I should mention that I really had no intention of propagating the Easter Bunny legend. I'm not a huge fan of the Easter Bunny, personally. And I figure, one myth in a childhood is enough. But, I didn't convey my feelings to Zach, and as I heard him bringing the boys downstairs he said, "Let's go see what the Easter Bunny brought." Sigh. Oh well.

We move on.

Ben, spotted the target and moving in.

Ben's first reaction was to pick up that blue shovel you see there and run to the back door to go and dig something up. We brought him back inside.

I was trying to go with something of a Peter Rabbit/Gardening theme, because of their recent interest in those things. But all these other cool toys kept creeping in. Like the Olivia book. They love the Olivia book.

They both got little stuffed rabbits and I made them some carrots to eat. The rabbits, that is, the boys shouldn't eat the carrots.

They figured it out.

It was oodles and oodles of fun. And we were spectaularly late for church. Oh, and here's a picture Ben took of me while I was cutting strawberries for the waffles.

I think it looks pretty cool. And I need to stand up straight.

Happy Easter!

Easter Stories

Happy Easter!

I hope everyone had a glorious Easter. Sorry I didn't get this post up yesterday, but there is a Wii in the house and I am only human. Anyway, we had a fun filled day, as well as fun filled days leading up to it. As I mentioned before, we are down in Phoenix, Arizona visiting Zach's family. It's been oodles of fun. We got three baby chicks and a baby duck from a pet store to have fun with over Easter. Apparently they dye some with food coloring this time of year. Interesting. We got a red one and a blue one and a natural one. And a duck. The duck has really stolen the show, as it likes to be held and likes to fall asleep on everybody. It is truly adorable and Emma, Zach's little sister, has fallen in love with him. We named him Sir Lucky Waddlesworth. Yep. And the natural one is Buttercup and the blue one is Orlando Blue. The naming took a good deal of time and was done with deep consideration and sincerity. Anyway, lets move onto pictures.

Sam, enjoying the duck and chicks, before he learned he could pick them up.

Then we moved onto picking them up. Not always gently, but he was trying. Really trying. He would pick one up, drop it on my lap, then pick it up again and drop it on the ground. Good times.

Dyeing eggs!
Ben really got ino the eggs. Maybe you can tell that by the huge puddles of blue dye. There will be an orange puddle a few minutes after this picture.

Oh, there it is. He stained his hands and somehow managed to dye the entire bottoms of his feet two different colors. But man-oh-man did he dye some fabulous eggs.

Ben and Sam listening to bunny songs on Grandpa's Victrola. They really love this.

Opening Easter baskets! Emma and Hannah got us up pretty early to do this, but it still managed to be fun.
Update: Sam, not Ben, and his new cars. (So, in case you are wondering, yes, I do get them mixed up from time to time)

We had an easter egg hunt after dinner. Ben found the first one. He wanted me to peel it so he could eat it.

Sam, putting eggs into his basket.

Sam, stealing eggs from Ben to put in his basket. He really got the hang of Easter egg hunting quickly.

Tallying it all up.

We had a lot of fun. And I'll probably put a video of Easter Egg hunting up here later. But, to get distracted by a fabulously fun video game is human. In the mean time, here is a picture Sam riding Harry the dog like a horse. Enjoy!