A Blessed Birthday and Easter Weekend

Easter Weekend was a busy one! It started off with my birthday on Good Friday, was filled with our favorite Easter traditions, and ended with a beautiful Easter Sunday. I know I'm in the minority, but Easter is one of my favorite holidays!

We packed a LOT into 3 days! I had a mini birthday celebration, we dyed Easter Eggs, we had two backyard egg hunts, we had a mini Saturday evening Easter dinner with two friends, and we celebrated Easter with my parents and my sister's family. Other than not being able to go to church in person, the weekend was perfect!

I planned on posting the day after Easter, but apparently when I turned another year older, my body decided to break! I pulled a muscle in my lower back for the first time ever, and I literally could not move without feeling excruciating pain for two days, and I ended up in bed for hours. Thankfully, it went away quickly, and to celebrate, I got my first vaccine, and felt yucky for about 24 hours. But, hey, let's get back to my birthday and Easter!

Happy Easter!

My family had a wonderful Easter Sunday! Easter is tied with Christmas for my favorite holiday. Everything just feels so new and perfect on this day! 

We kicked off the fun last night.  After eating an easy dinner and baking some Easter cookies, we dyed our Easter eggs!

Liam isn't quite ready for the dyeing process just yet, so he enjoyed some Easter Egg snacks!

I think it was our quickest Easter Egg Dyeing experience to date!  Each of the kids dyed a dozen eggs and they were done in less than 10 minutes!

After baths and showers, the girls planted some jelly beans. It's a fun tradition for our family!

 

I know each family does baskets differently. In our family, the kids sit out their empty baskets, then the Easter Bunny fills them up and hides them. In the morning, the kids have to search the house for their baskets. Grant and I both grew up with the same tradition, so we carried it on with our kids!

The kids sat out their baskets, then headed to bed. While they slept, the "Easter Bunny" arrived!

Dylan's basket was hidden in a closet, Lexie's basket was hidden on the attic steps, Lily's basket was hidden in the bathtub, and Liam's basket was hidden in his teepee!

And sure enough, those jelly beans sprouted, and the Easter Bunny left behind a clue that he was there!

Easter morning is ALWAYS rushed, but so much fun. The kids barely have enough time to search for baskets and check out what's inside of them before church, but somehow, the kids manage to squeeze it in!

This morning, the kids found their baskets quickly, and immediately dug in! Liam was pretty impressed!

The Easter Bunny did a good job this year! ;)

Thankfully, church is just a 1/2 mile away!  We rushed out the door, and made it to our seats just a few minutes before Easter Sunday service began!

The kids are always so well-behaved in church, but I was a bit concerned about how Liam was going to behave.  The past few days, he has been on the go CONSTANTLY and he gets frustrated when he's restrained.

He was an angel!  He clapped, he sang, he participated in the kids service, and he started to drift off during the last 5 minutes.  I just might have bribed him with some marshmallows, but it worked! And he promptly perked up for some donuts after the service!

After church, we stopped by Grant's Nannie's house to visit with some relatives who were in town for Easter.  It was a short visit, but it was nice to see everyone!

Next, we stopped at Grant's other grandma's house.  We ate an early dinner and visited with all the cousins!

Our last stop was at my parent's house for an egg hunt and dinner!

Liam isn't quite interested in egg hunts yet.  He's a one egg and done kind of kid!  Dylan found all of his eggs (each kid is assigned a color) in about a minute and ran off.  Lexie and Lily were willing participants, thankfully!

Dinner was delicious! The older kids ate outside since it was so warm while Liam entertained the rest of us!

It was a long and busy day, so we decided to head home shortly after dinner.  I always like to include "real life" pictures in my posts, because let's face it, life is never perfect!  This is the result of not enough sleep, an hour and a half at church, two dinners, and three places to visit: One exhausted family!

Despite those tired faces, it was a fantastic Easter Sunday full of love, family, and fun!  

Do you celebrate Easter?  What are your favorite Easter traditions? 

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Birthdays and Egg Dyeing

Well, here I am, another year older!  Then again, I will fight that until 10:23 PM, then there's no denying it!   More on that later, because when this post goes live, I'll be rushing out of the house to start my day with my family and friends.  Birthdays are nothing like they used to be, but perhaps they are more special.  There's more love in my life than ever before!

Easter week is so busy for our family. Even more so with a birthday thrown in! We only had a small window of time for dyeing our Easter Eggs. That time was tonight (Technically last night, but I haven't gone to bed yet!).  The girls were super excited!



Egg dyeing night with 4 kids is best described as somewhat organized chaos.  It took many years for me to let go of my expectations, but I did, and things go much smoother now!

A few things I've learned over the years:

~Buy a plastic table cloth to cover your table with. Throw it away when you're done.
~Put the baby/young toddler in the highchair and give him/her fake eggs. Watching is just as much fun for them and MUCH easier for you!
~ Just let the kids dye the eggs however they want.  Gone are the days of beautifully decorated eggs.

A few things I learned this year:

~Tween boys do not enjoy dyeing eggs.
~Forget the Ikea bibs and old clothes.  Clothing can be washed.
~Sit down the camera and let the husband take pictures for once!



Moving on...

We decided to try the Kool-aid method for dyeing eggs this year!  It was easier than I expected, and the egg dye smelled REALLY good! Plus, it easily washed off our hands.  I'm a convert!

Items Needed:

•  Packets of Kool-Aid (5 for $1...can't beat that!)
•  Containers to dye the eggs in
•  Egg dippers or spoons
•  Tap water

Pour a packet of Kool-Aid into a container, add 2/3 cup of water, and stir until the Kool-Aid dissolves.  That's it!   Just a small note: the grape flavor dyes the egg a dark purplish-brown color.  My kids thought it was a cool color, but I should have used the lighter purple!



The girls loved dyeing eggs, Dylan played along, and Liam laughed (and probably thought, "Who are these crazy people?!?") and tried to eat his fake eggs.  It was chaotic, and it was all over in about 10 minutes!






Everything wasn't perfect, but it was a memorable night!  I know I will always remember these sweet little faces just how they looked tonight!

Kicking Off Easter Weekend

Easter is one of my favorite holidays!  I love everything about it...the egg hunts, dyeing Easter eggs, wearing our Easter best, Easter service at church, Easter dinner, and spending time with family and friends.

We had a wonderful Easter this year!  All the fun began on Saturday afternoon.  We met our friends at our local park for an egg hunt.  The weather was warm and sunny, so it was the perfect day for it!

It was a great event for the kids, but all the age groups had their hunts at the same time.  Unfortunately, our kids were at 3 different fields.  I stayed with Lily, Grant stayed with Lexie and a family friend's daughter, and Dylan stayed with a classmate and his mom.  I quickly ran from field to field and snapped a picture of each child before the egg hunts began.





Lily's egg hunt was intense.  It was for ages 1-5, and the older kids snagged all the eggs.  It was over within 45 seconds. Lily only got 6 eggs, but she didn't seem to mind!




We walked over to Lexie's field, and watched as she hunted for eggs. There were only 10 kids in her age group and only 5 in Dylan's age group, so their baskets were filled!




After they finished, they all sat down to look in their eggs.  This was a candy free egg hunt, which I loved!  They got tiny action figures and animals, stickers, tattoos, and even ear buds!!! Lexie happily shared some of her loot with Lily and Charlie.



The kids went down to the pavilion to get their goody bags.  They were filled with crackers, juice bags, and some candy, so they sat down for a quick snack.





We don't usually see the Easter Bunny, but he was greeting the kids, so a sleeping Liam got to meet him.  Lily got to meet him for the first time, too.  She was very intrigued!




The younger kids ran off to play, but Dylan declared that he was just too old for the playground (WHAT?!?), so we took Liam to a shady spot to play.





Liam even joined the older kids on the playground!  I had to get creative...







The girls played, the boys hiked through the woods with the dads, and the moms talked.  We ended up staying for about an hour after the egg hunt ended.  We attempted a group picture before we all left.  I love our group of kids so much!





After the egg hunt, we visited with Grant's family for a few hours.  Some of his relatives were in town, and his cousin and his family stopped by, too.  It was a nice afternoon!

We dropped Grant, Dylan, and Lily off at home, and Lexie, Liam, and I went shopping and picked up dinner. That evening, our friends came over, and we dyed eggs together.



The boys quickly abandoned the girls.  Audrey, Lexie, and Lily dyed 4 dozen eggs on their own. We love Audrey so much!  She is a beautiful young girl and is so good with the little kids!






Liam watched the entire process and made sure everything ran smoothly.




Our newest little "bunny" made the egg dyeing cleanup tolerable!







We had a great day with our family and friends!

Dylan, Lexie, Lily, and Liam's baskets were placed on the table, and they headed to bed, excited for the arrival of Easter!