our hatchlings

it is time to say good-bye to our easter hatchlings from grandma. they were huge and the kids loved playing with them in the bathtub (not while bathing). thanks, grandma! love.

grandma goodies

grandma brought the kids 'hatching' eggs for easter. i am not sure who is more excited for them to hatch, grandma or the kids.

and of course she brought other goodies too, including sunglasses from her and big pop's recent trip to the key west. love.

easter

we got home pretty late last night and i was exhausted, but there was lots to do for easter (personally and for church) before i could get into bed. and then i got up early and made some 'easter egg' pancakes. because i am crazy. and tired.

after a super busy morning at church i realized that we had not taken a picture of the whole family. since we were in the car, i got at least one of us dressed up.

the kids were all changed before i even got into the house. they were ready for baskets and an egg hunt! i had wanted to do a scavenger hunt again this year, but it was just too much last night. the kids didn't mind at all. the baskets were candy free since we don't let them eat it anyway. battery-operated toothbrushes were the biggest hit.

maddux has been asking for an umbrella for a very long time and was super excited!

and then i could finally exhale and start the process of unpacking. happy easter! the greatest joy of redemption. love.

kansas egg hunt

while we were visiting in topeka, papa and nana were busy putting together an egg hunt for the kids. they give the kids some easter baskets they had put together for them and once they were emptied the kids headed out to hunt.

once all of the eggs are accounted for the kids started sorting through their bounty.

manning and max staring each other down

the kids are lucky to be so loved. love.

preschool easter parties

since i spent the valentine's day parties with manning's class, i promised maddux that i would spend the easter party with him. it wasn't so much a "party" as a snack and an easter egg hunt. his teacher was saying that it fell so weird being on st. patrick's day. all of the kids were in green, but doing easter themed crafts.

the kids all had maddux' favorite donuts. these are pricy little donuts and most of the kids didn't even eat them! it was hurting the moms watching as almost every single child threw away both of their donuts - most without even tasting them. i intercepted maddux' and had them for my breakfast.

the kids were pretty excited about the egg hunt. the weather kept us indoors but they still took a little bit of time to come up with six each.

maddux was so excited to have me there. and i got to see him share his "show and tell."

madelyn might have suggested it, but he really did want to bring madelyn's 'tomb' craft. love.

palm sunday donkey

manning was super excited to show me the fun little donkey he made in school today for palm sunday. although he did keep calling it a "camel."

look at this sweet angel face sleeping. love.

madelyn explains easter

madelyn and manning worked on "crafts" while the boys were at the car show. she made this easter story for her friend who "doesn't know about God so that she can understand easter."

almost all of the pieces are made from pipe cleaners and she wrote it all out to help her friend remember the significance of each item. love.

waiting and waiting in the car dealership

last week, we brought the van in for a repair to a rear window that, as i described it, had fallen off the track.  it didn't make me feel that great when they said that they had never seen that before. uh-oh. so we spent almost two hours to learn that they were going to need to call toyota for approval for the repair under warranty and order an entire new window (it is a single piece and the plastic clips had broken). so we came back today for the installation of the new window and take care of another, non-safety related, recall.

i had come prepared last week and was loaded up again today. i made the boys spend the first hour drawing, using stickers and word searches. but then we broke out the ipad. i used the timer on my phone to give them each a five minute turn before passing it off to the next one. it worked out much better than you would have thought. in fact, we had several other people come over and praise their behavior. i was pretty impressed with them myself, especially when we started to head into hour three! they took another break from the ipad and spent some time watching the swamp people marathon that was on the t.v. in the waiting room - and they had a million questions about it, many of which i couldn't answer.

i started to get a little nervous as we started getting closer to the time we needed to be home to meet madelyn's bus. when they came to give me an update, i had to make some quick choices. they hadn't yet gotten to the recall (something with the backs of the chairs). apparently, the window had been quite a job that they said will be outsourced if it happens to someone else. they offered me a loaner car, but it wouldn't fit all of the carseats. they wanted to know if i wanted them to keep going or come back again. i did not want to come again so i started trying to get ahold of neighbors who might be able to get madelyn off of the bus and called the school to find out what i needed to do to approve the substitute pick-up (they don't let the kids off the bus unless a parent or other appointed person is visible). after a few attempts, i found a neighbor who could meet madelyn at the bus stop and called the school again to give her name for the driver.

it turned out that they couldn't do the recall because of all the carseats and wanted me to bring it back another day. sigh. on the plus side, i found a solution to my egg dying plans for next year - marshmallows! so all and all a very successful trip to the dealership. and madelyn was spoiled rotten by our neighbors with applesauce, cookies and hot chocolate for snack. she was a little sad to have to go home. love.

easter sunday

we had some happy kiddos easter morning. my favorite part is that they are just as happy for each other. 

they only offer childcare for children under 3 on easter so we had all of the bigs with us while we served first hour. as you can see, the bigs were excited to be in manning's story time. manning? not so much. i think he was pretty tired from getting up so early with the baskets. i think he was up at 5am or so.

we did get a fairly decent family picture after service - 5 out of 6 isn't too bad.

we made the kids wait until after lunch (where matt and i tag teamed to make custom order eggs and bacon. delicious but very time consuming!). this year, i made each kid 20 eggs in a single color (or colors), 10 eggs had jelly beans and 10 had coins. but i couldn't remember if it was mason's blue eggs or maddux' orange eggs that i had to supplement with green. they were great sports about it and worked as a team to make sure everyone found all of their eggs. the rule was that they couldn't 'help' unless they were asked.

it was a very nice and relaxed easter at home. He is risen! love.

community easter egg hunt

the easter egg hunt we went to last year took place while we were in virginia last weekend. i had looked for egg hunts in virginia, but they weren't until this weekend. by chance, i did discover this local egg hunt that i had missed in my earlier searches.

they had a huge crowd! we couldn't even get close to the little kid area, so we lined up in the section for older kids. when it started manning didn't really get it and had to be helped by matt to pick any up but the big kids just took off.

once manning saw what was inside, he understood the excitement. the eggs were filled with candy and rainbow loom bracelets and rings.

the kids were delighted to get to go to an egg hunt this year. love.

last year dying eggs?

this is what egg dying looked like this year. the kids had zero interest in participating. it was just me dying eggs that we don't normally buy or eat (and that were very expensive!). i think i am going to look into some alternatives next year (i already have several ideas) or at least wait to see if the kids ask to do it. some traditions just aren't worth keeping. love.