Happy Easter!

Isn't this the cutest thing?  Evan made it in Sunday School
last week.  There's a paper plate cave, and a ball of brown
paper is the rock you can roll away to find an angel inside!

Yesterday, we started the day with an egg hunt at a local church.  The sign said "All Welcome," so we figured that meant us too, why not?  Evan thought it was great fun, and was rewarded with a basket full of candy and Boo, a new blue sock monkey friend.  Drew didn't come home empty handed; his basket contained a number of (empty) plastic eggs that brought him tons of entertainment.

 

After nap, we started to dye our real eggs.  The neighbor's grandaughter Kaia came over as we were starting and invited us to come dye eggs together, so we moved the process to their backyard.

 

I love that Evan has a friend his age who is the grandchild of our neighbors - I spent years as a kid with a good friend Carolyn who lived next door to my grandparents.  After the eggs (and our fingertips) were properly colored, we all played at the playground before heading in to dinner.  Evan periodically asked throughout the evening if the Easter Bunny would come, and he told us that if the Bunny couldn't make it to all the houses in one night, she'd probably come to our house the next night.  Agreed!

This morning Evan stumbled into our room at his usual time, and it only took a minute or two for him to switch to excitement mode.  He was wonderfully patient, waiting for us to get Drew up before running downstairs.  He was thrilled to discover that not only had the Bunny come and left awesome baskets of toys and treats, but miraculously, presents from his grandparents and aunt and uncle had appeared too.

After church and brunch, we paused for a few minutes to take advantage of us all being dressed up and (mostly) clean to take some photos.  We're not a bad looking crew!

 

 

Then it was time for the most fun of all - an egg hunt with Kaia!  The kids went into the neighbor's house for a few minutes while some of the adults hid eggs around our backyard, then we let them loose.  Evan and Kaia were great together, racing around yet sharing and helping each other find eggs.  It's so fun to watch the kids - they spy an egg and dash to it, not even noticing the 3 eggs they passed and practically (or sometimes actually) stepped on to get to the one they spied.

It didn't take long for all the eggs to be found (we think, the adults failed to count them before hiding them... Mike may find a surprise or two next time he cuts the lawn) and we all collapsed on the grass to check the loot.  Eggs were traded (princess erasers for jellybeans, baby yogurt drops for a few coins), fingers and faces quickly turned a chocolaty brown, and sun-and-sugar induced yawns began to appear.  After more than a couple protests ("I want MORE candy, mom!"), we headed back in to our houses.  Evan had swim lessons to round out the day and after a delicious dinner, Drew was asleep shortly after 7, with Evan not far behind.  Unfortunately, the kitchen fairies didn't appear to clean up dinner, but we took care of the leftovers and declared this one great Easter.