Monday, April 1, 2013

{Easter 2013}

It is hard to believe Easter has already come and gone and we are officially in April.  Time is officially flying by!  Okay, get ready for the longest post ever.  Trying to sum up the last week in one post...

Easter started last weekend actually with the neighborhood Easter egg hunt.  We have loved this hunt in the past, however, this year the weather was yuck.  It was raining just enough to be annoying.  The kids didn't seem to mind so they quickly got the hunt started!  We rushed through it a bit, but the boys enjoyed it and got a few treats before we retreated to the car...

Ben surprisingly picked up what the hunt was all about!

Luke was all business.  He takes egg hunting very seriously.
 
My goal was to get a picture of the two of them together. 
Well...it's the two of them.  Just not smiling or looking at the camera. 

Got them looking at the camera, but still no smiles. 
They sure look like they are having fun... 

Later in the week it was time to dye some eggs!  This is the first time I did this with the boys and it actually turned out to be a real hit.  I am not a fan of hard boiled eggs and I just saw Martha Stewart on the Today show talk about blowing out eggs.  I decided that was going to be our plan of action.  Luke loved watching me blow out the eggs and was glued to the sink where I was doing it.  It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be and by the end I had perfected doing it with only creating a small whole.  The blown eggs...


This guy was super excited to get started!  We headed outside on the picnic table to start dying to help reduce the mess.


Both Ben and Luke loved dying the eggs.  Ben of course was into everything and keeping him involved and busy so he wouldn't crush the eggs was a bit challenging, but it worked out okay.  Luke loved it and was really good at it and using "gentle" hands.  He would get frustrated with Ben at times, but overall not too much screaming.  Which is success in my book.


First lesson of egg dying...if the eggs are hollow, they will float.  Therefore, you must hold them down.  Which really means this will be a harder process for a toddler and a 3 year old.  I am still glad I did this method, however, Ben kept grabbing them out of their little tubs and Luke's hands were dyed all sorts of colors since he pretty much used his fingers to hold them down. 

Floating eggs...

Here were the finished products!  Pretty good I would say.  You may notice there are only 11 eggs.  So where is that final egg??


This was the only casualty of the activity.  I couldn't stop Ben before he crushed one of the eggs...


Since the eggs were hollowed out, I plan to keep one or two as a momento of the first time we dyed eggs together.  In the meantime, they sit in this basket on our dining room table as decor.  The only Easter decor in the entire house.  Major mom fail in decorations this year!


Now we get to Easter weekend.  First, we had Chat's mom over for dinner on Good Friday night.  I made the meal and she came over with egg and bunny cookies that she made.  We spent time with the boys and watch some March Madness basketball. 

Chat was scheduled to work all weekend, so we had to be creative when we could do our egg hunt at home.  The only time he could get away for an hour was Saturday morning, so Saturday morning it was!  He gave me the signal he was on his way home, so I distracted the boys with a movie and I headed out to the backyard to hide the eggs.
 
The boys loved the hunt, specifically Ben!  He became quite the little hunter.  Luke loved it too, but he would go to each egg, immediately open it and take the candy then throw the empty egg on the ground.  No matter how much I explained how he should do it, that was his method, so we just let him enjoy.  Here are the only two pictures I took that morning of the boys hunting/with their treats.

This boy loves him some candy.  Look at that smile...



They also got their Easter baskets that morning too.  The best thing that the Easter bunny brought...confetti eggs!  We taught Luke how to break them on our shoulder's and he got such a kick out it!  I am thinking confetti eggs might be a new tradition.


Luke playing with the confetti from the eggs

That afternoon/evening we headed to Chat's stepdad's house for some more egg dying, some cookie decorating and pizza.  Luke loves it over there because he gets to play with so many kids...especially his sweet cousin Macey. Clearly I am slacking in the picture department becasue this is the only one I took all evening. 

Luke, Macey and Ben playing Ring Around The Rosy

Easter Sunday finally came!  Chat was at work, so I got the boys ready and we made it to church.  The boys had a rough morning actually and when I dropped them off at the church nursery, they were both howling.  Luckily they both recovered pretty quickly and when I picked them up they were all smiles.  We then headed to my parent's for Easter lunch.  I didn't take one picture there.  Not one!  I am so mad at myself for not getting a picture of the boys in their Easter outfits together.  Hopefully my sister has a few that she can share with me.

We went home for naps after lunch and another egg hunt that my parent's organized. Chat got home later that day and we all loaded up to go to the Astros Opening Day game that night with my dad (Grandad!).  Talk about fun!  We were in a suite so the boys could run around and have endless food and drinks.  It was a ball!

Luke and Grandad walking into the stadium hand in hand

All my boys at the ballfield!

Luke watching down below (although he ran around more than watched!)

Lyle Lovett sang the national anthem when we got there.  At one point, I was letting Ben run around in the hallway and look who walked about 10 feet from us....

Ben's first celebrity sighting!

It was a busy, fun week!  Now it is back to the normal.  Luke is at school, Ben is taking a nap.  All is right with the world :).


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