Saturday, May 7, 2011

Easter!!

Maybe the TWO exclamation marks in the title will distract you from how long it's been since we've posted. I don't even have a good excuse, like, "my computer's broken."

Anyway, Easter this year was wonderful. I think I'll say at every holiday for the next several years, "now that they're a little older they really have fun with WhateverHoliday." And it'll be true. Up until they cross that tipping point where holidays and parents and anything fun becomes lame. But for now, this year was no exception and they both loved Easter even more than last year.

We started by dying Easter eggs, which was great fun. Madelyn started coloring on them, then discovered she could use the crayon like a chisel to break the shell and eat the egg inside. Needless to say, Maddy didn't really dye any of the eggs we gave her but DID have a face full of hard boiled yolk.

Easter morning, we spent at home hunting eggs and opening Easter baskets. Both kids had a great time going through their baskets and finding hidden eggs all around the room. Madelyn LOVES bunnies in general so getting stuffed bunnies as a gift was a dream come true. She also thought the egg hunt was pretty fun, but then when she discovered the eggs had food in them (crackers in hers) she fell in love with Easter. Bunnies AND food?! Let's do it every day! Patrick, as expected, turned the egg hunt into a "rescue mission" of sorts and had a great time searching the house for missing eggs. He had some Dinosaur Train toys in his Easter basket that have slept in his bed with him every night since. He also got a little cement mixer that was in almost every Easter picture that morning because he wouldn't put it down.

Then we headed to church. We went to the service before the one I was playing drums for so we could all sit as a family and I could help with our wiggly kiddos. Patrick did awesome through the whole service and sat surprisingly still, quietly asking lots of questions. I spent most of the service outside with Madelyn watching her be fascinated with the big fountain and run around in the perfect weather.

It was our year to host which we typically do at our house but we instead did at the Suskays' neighborhood clubhouse. Let me say, it was WAY easier to have there and thank you to the Suskays for letting us use the facility. With our two little ones it's difficult to keep the house clean for more than five minutes some days so not having to worry about getting the house ready, getting the yard ready, making sure we have enough chairs and tables and all that fun stuff was great. Plus, the clubhouse has a really nice playground by it so the kids could go play any time they wanted. We also did an Easter egg hunt for the kids in the field right outside the clubhouse.

We had such a great time. The weather was literally perfect so the kids got to run around outside a ton. We spent a bunch of time playing at the playground and then just hung out and ate on the covered deck. But the highlight was the Easter egg hunt. We had marked the eggs with P, M and C for Patrick, Madelyn and Carson to make sure everybody got the same amount and the two little ones didn't end up with some of the big kid candy Patrick got. The little girls' eggs were mostly filled with stickers, crackers and bubbles. Watching the three of them run around the field looking for eggs was awesome. It makes us realize again how lucky we are to have so much of our family this close to us. Every picture of the kids I look at I can't help but mentally flash forward 15 years to sitting around a table looking at the three of them being silly together and laughing about how little and cute they were.

So, thank you to the family that was able to make it. Thank you for bringing so much awesome food and spending the day together. And thank you to Abbie and Mollie who are always so generous and take pictures with our camera at things like this so Angie and I can both be involved with helping the kids. It really does mean a lot and you guys capture wonderful memories for us we would otherwise miss.



Here's a slideshow of all the pictures from Easter. Or you can check them all out at once in the gallery.

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