Easter 09

4 boys under 5 on a Saturday morning with a lot of egg dye. Sounds fun and busy...and it was just that! Parker "got it" this year. All around got it. He had a blast dyeing the eggs. Such concentration with the tongue out. The first 6 eggs he touched, he dropped and cracked. Oops...oops...sorry momma. Well, that's what it's all about...him having a good time. My long lost cousin that moved to town last year happened to move 2 houses down from us and has 2 boys, 5 & 3 and another on the way. They all played so well together. I took the older boy Jake and Parker to the matinee movie on Saturday too. We saw Bolt. Super cute movie and the boys were great together. Grandma Audrey trying to show Parker how to use the little spoon to fish out the eggs instead of his hands. He may still have a little green dye on his fingers.

Eating his first of four hard boiled eggs of the day. Yes four. The kids ate every bit of the egg. I was waiting for the I don't like the middle or I don't like the white part. But he ate all of it.

His blue egg he made for Emmitt. You can tell who he misses...Emma and Peter. They got eggs and other than that just Emmitt. I see how we rate. Bear had to make me an egg with my name on it. We did the norm for the rest, Happy Easter, Jesus, and of course Rotten. The Rotten egg is the one we do last with all the colors mixed together to get the ugliest egg possible. This year it turned out a brilliant deep purple. Not so rotten. That is one of Bear's family traditions that has carried on in our family.

Easter morning brought lots of excitement. Parker was running around like crazy and Emmitt followed right behind him. The boys found the bunny tracks by the back door. This is the other tradition. Bear's mom would dip her fingers in flour and make tracks all over the hardwood floor to lead you to an egg. Parker just kept squealing about more trails.

Daddy, ah-hem, the bunny put an egg in the stereo speaker and it got stuck. So he took some butter knives to get it out. Finally he got it out. Emmitt walked over to the same egg and put it back in the speaker, where I am pretty sure it still is. I love how he is wearing his All I do is Score hockey shirt from Leps on Easter morning. nice.

Emmitt repeatedly busted into all his eggs or whined until we opened them for him and proceeded to eat as much candy as he could. Handfuls of jelly beans, m&m's, more jelly beans. He hated having the grass on his fingers or on his foot. Note to self...next year, no grass.

Parker just kept saying That silly rabbit put an egg in my slipper, on my toothbrush, in your shoe....that's so silly.

Reaching for yet more candy...

Full of chocolate, sneaking an egg into the kitchen. I should mention that by the time breakfast rolled around neither of the kids ate. Then the sugar kicked in just in time for church and they were high on jelly beans acting like devils at church. We didn't get their early enough to sit in church so we sat in the over flow and watched (or attempted to) on the TV. Well other kids were wandering around, so Parker thought he could and therefore Emmitt followed. Bear is glaring at me asking through gritted teeth why are we here? I don't know...because it's Easter?! The kids are normally very well behaved at church, they are familiar with the place and know how to behave, but get them there on a special occasion and they act like they've never been there before. I actually had Parker outside of church in a time out against the building! Nice.

In their adorable Easter outfits. I will never have a frilly girly dress to buy...so I went for the matching sweater vests and Payne Stewart hats.

Dinner was wonderful this year. I hosted at our house for a total of 17. Every family brought something, so it was very easy and stress free on all of us. I love doing holidays this way. The kids all played together right up until bedtime and enjoyed the beautiful day inside and out.

Emmitt was Grandma's boy all weekend. He would crawl over to her and pronounce UP! perfectly and over course she would scoop him right up. Snuggle and relax on her lap.