Easter Weekend

We hope you all enjoyed your weekend as much as we did ours. Saturday we went to our community Easter egg "hunt" aka: grab. It was raining hard and we didn't want to ruin the camera, so no pictures. But you can imagine it. Large circles are chalked off in the grass. Each circle has an age range. We were in the 0-3 circle. Kids and parents stand around the circle in the pouring rain waiting for the horn to blast. Inside the circle are hundreds of plastic eggs. They are not hidden. They are the opposite of hidden. They are just laying there. Randomly kids break away from parents and run into the circle early. They are dragged back crying and screaming. Everyone's toes are numb by now. We are all sick of waiting for the late folks to find parking and push and shove for a spot in the circle. After 20 minutes the rain increases from a steady downpour to a driving rain and the horn blows. Kids run, parents push while screaming "look for the golden egg!!!!". Our kids are overwhelmed and refuse to pick up eggs. In a few seconds all the eggs have evaporated. We walk away wet and laughing at the absurdity of it all. This has nothing to do with Easter, of course. But it's kind of funny to go to.

Today Caroline donned her Easter dress (a gift from Grandma) and her new headband (a gift from mommy's friend Jessica) and smiled for some pictures. I thought I'd include a picture of mommy and daughter, forgive me.

I am boycotting most of the little boy's dress clothes in stores this year--so Ezra has no cute Easter outfit. Oh well. Daddy likes it better this way.

After meeting we headed down to Great-Grandma's for Easter dinner. I think there were about 23 of us this year. Lots of older cousins to entertain Ezra and Caroline.

These days everyone is always gathered around a computer. Notice another one being carried into the room in the background.

My Uncle Dan and Aunt Cindi. One of them is celebrating a 50th birthday today.

Rob wasn't feeling real well and crashed out on the couch. He didn't even wake up when Ezra's Ha-Ha-George was placed in his arms.

Uncle Mikey is always a favorite with Ezra and Caroline. They must sense that he is a Grandpa as well. His grandkids live waaaaay out on the east coast and so he enjoys a little substitute grandkid time when he can get it.

Great-Grandma, Aunt Pam and Carlie had an Easter egg hunt for Ezra and Caroline. Back in the day the Easter egg hunt was the most anticipated part of our get-together. We'd all pray for sunshine and be so disappointed when nine times out of ten it was rainy and windy. In fact, one year there was a wind storm that took out the power and also started stripping the tiles off a neighbor's roof. All the uncles rushed over to help secure the roof while the aunts stood around trying to salvage the mostly cooked dinner. (Don't worry, no one was hurt, the roof was saved, the power came back on, the dinner was eaten).

When the weather was nice we'd hunt for eggs out in the yard. The uncles hid eggs in crazy spots and us kids were let out in waves, according to age. Then we all grew up. No more egg hunts. Now there are great-grand kids! So, the youngest of the grandkids (Carlie) was excited to hide eggs for the great-grandkids. Unfortunately they don't get the hiding part and mostly followed her around watching what she was doing with the colorful plastic eggs : )

We tried locking the kids in this room filled with high school seniors and a recent graduate. But, neither the girls nor the kids were too excited with that option. As a side note, Ezra tried on and hid all of these girls shoes.

We hid eggs on the previously sleeping Rob. Poor guy, just laying there sick and getting abused like that.

We tried locking them in the hall closet whilst the eggs were being hidden--you can see how much they enjoyed that. Finally, we let them out and the scavenging began.

Cousin Carlie helps them hunt.

"Look what I found!"

"Oh MY!" she exclaimed when an egg fell open and she discovered that they were filled with CANDY! They both looked like little hyper chipmunks as they opened eggs and stuffed their cheeks as fast as they could.

He managed to fill up his tupperware quite well.

Another interesting hiding place for this little yellow egg. We might have gotten a little too sophisticated with the hiding for a three and one year old.

After the kids had their egg hunt, the adults got to enjoy our own kind of dessert: pie!

Caught in the act. No, she didn't polish off the entire chocolate cream pie...we just ran out of plates.

Poor Grandma, she'd be embarrassed, but she looks so pretty in this picture. She really eats very little when she entertains, so it's not very fair of us to set her up this way. She spends most of her time on her feet in the kitchen cooking, arranging, cleaning and serving. And we all enjoy the finished product.

What a way to finish off a wonderful meal! Pie! A little chocolate cream, a little caramel apple, a little raspberry and a lotta whipped cream : )

Of course, these days everything we do is a "last" and therefore just a little bit sad. We thoroughly enjoyed the day. Both kids missed their naps in order to squeeze every last drop of play time out. We hugged all the aunts, uncles, cousins, grandpa and grandmas good-bye and headed for home. And we know that, Lord willing, we'll be back for plenty more of the good times.