Easter 2012

What a weekend! (I should say "What a week!" I have been trying to get the post done for days!) Holidays are so much fun, but also very busy. It always take me a whole day to reclaim the house after rushing around like we did for days. We finally dyed eggs on Saturday night right before bed. Last year, we used the Dudley Egg Spinner. This year, we chose the old-fashioned route of placing the eggs into the vinegar-water-dye tablet mixture. As we waited for the tablets to dissolve, Jake asked, "Why does is smell like cleaner?" Can you tell what I use to clean our house???

I was pleasantly surprised that we had no mishaps. Er, I was pleasantly surprised that the kids had no mishaps. Should I mention how I may have spilled some vinegar while I was filling the cups? No? Good. I will say it was a good thing we had a tablecloth.  

The had so much fun dyeing the eggs. They would follow the same pattern with each egg:

1. Drop the egg into the cup
2. Wait approximately 2.83 seconds
3. Pull it out to inspect the boldness of the color
4. Repeat steps 1-3 as needed.

Needless to say, it took quite a while to decorate 2 dozen or so eggs. We lost a couple along the way that the kids dropped too quickly into the cup and one that daddy dropped onto the table and broke. We made up for it though by dyeing a few of the brown eggs that I accidentally boiled days before. We impressed the kids by using a white crayon to write on the eggs and having their names magically appear after being dyed. They also had fun playing pictionary with daddy to bide the time while the eggs were sitting in the cups. 

This year, we filled the eggs with LEGOs. (Way better than candy!) Each child had his own set in his own colored eggs. The blue and yellow eggs for Zac were the easiest to find. Alyssa's pink eggs were hidden with a medium difficulty. Jake's green and orange eggs were the hardest to find. Knowing which color to look for made the event run smoothly. It also ensured that each child had the exact same number of eggs. Plus, it was just way more fun!

I think I'm just as excited every year about the baskets as the kids are! They get so many cool things! They each got a new pair of shoes/boots, coloring/activity books, reading books, crafts, bubbles, and toys. And just like last year, the bottoms of the baskets were filled with shirts, pajamas, and a spring jacket. It's just like Christmas! Tyler even got his very first Easter basket. I'm happy to say that he was absolutely thrilled to find all those diapers!   

Why is it so difficult to get kids to cooperate for pictures? Zac will tell me 47 times in a day, "Mommy, take picture me!" But when I'm trying to get a nice picture, it"s a totally different story. This is probably the best picture we got of all 3 kids before church.

* Side Note: Aren't they still adorable in their Easter outfits???

We tried again after church before going to my parents' house. Here we have 2 boys not cooperating. Getting better though.

And we tried again after we got to my parents'. What can I say? We're gluttons for punishment. Zac still was refusing to smile for the camera. As soon as we pulled it out, he hid his face in my shoulder. Bribing him with candy didn't even produce a smile! {gasp}

We finally got this picture of the family. While it might not be magazine-worthy, I'm just happy that no one is in tears and everyone is looking in the general direction of the camera.

And to think it took only 49 tries to get this one picture.

Of course, we enjoyed our day spent with family. We had entirely too much food - ham, fresh and smoked Polish sausage, deviled eggs, cheesy potatoes, sweet potato casserole, rolls, strawberry cheesecake, cupcakes, tres leches cake - ate entirely too much, and probably had entirely too much fun. I hope you had a lovely Resurrection Day and thanked the Lord for what He did for you.