Easter

We had a really great Easter, starting off with an awesome church service (the choir at Corinth is really good!). Then after church came family time (involving a yummy lunch, an Easter egg hunt, and crafts). What a special day to celebrate our risen Savior and the blessing of family!

Elijah followed the clue to his Easter "basket" and found some new cars and candy in special sports eggs.

At the starting line for the Easter egg hunt!

Finding eggs by "Fred" the rock. I've got all my 49 eggs (yes, that's right, 49, Grandma went a little overboard!). :)

Sorry, Matea, Eli's not sharing his eggs.

Soooo much candy makes me soooo happy!

Eli starts decoupaging his placemat. He liked painting on the glue.

Yep, that's REALLY covered well with the Modge Podge.

The finished products! Top row, l to r: Tori, Noah, Lexi. Bottom row, l to r: Lori, Eli, Missy

Even if she couldn't do the egg hunt or crafts, sweet Matea was still part of our day! Here she is in her Easter finest!

Matea got a new tambourine and maracas for Easter, and loves them!

I'll get eggs next year, Mom, but until then I'll just give you the raspberries!

Dunkin' Eggs!

On Saturday afternoon before Easter, Eli and Mommy and Grandma got out all the egg dyeing supplies and went to town! We had 5 dozen eggs to dye so we had plenty to amuse ourselves with and try out different creations. Elijah liked using the magic crayon, and the first eggs he made were for Lexi (a pink one), and Tori (an orange one). Then Eli died some for himself and then Aunt Lori and Uncle Jeff each got an egg too. He grudgingly agreed to dye one for Matea too, but I had to push that. :)  The biggest hit were the "egghicles" (that's how the package spelled it). We had a kit which came with stickers and wheels to turn the eggs into a police car, fire truck, police car, ambulance, and school bus. Eli had me put on the stickers and then he played with egg cars for the longest time. Who knew a hard boiled egg and some stickers would entertain a 3 year old for so long?!? I was busy dyeing eggs myself and kind of forgot to get many pictures, oops! We had a fun time and our eggs turned out really cool!

Taking out the first egg for Eli (Lexi's is still in the pink dye).

Checking progress is very important to get the right color.

The oh-so-delicate egg transfer! We lost quite a few . . .

Here are the "egghicles" - our police car and firetruck!

Driving our eggs around!  

Posing, er, singing with our eggs! Eli was rather excited!

Holding our favorites up (while Mommy holds her breath and prays they don't drop)!

Mommy's favorites . . .

I can't wait to do eggs again next year!

Easter Egg Scramble!

The day before Easter we headed off to church for the Easter Egg "Scramble" - not a hunt since the eggs were strewn everywhere in plain sight and the kids had to scramble to get their eggs. Eli was given an Easter book and saw an acted out Easter story and then the scramble began. We were in the lower age range which got to go first, and once Eli saw the eggs up the hill he took off, leaving Jon and I in the dust! Eli was really good about getting only his allotted amount of eggs (20), but after the first few he decided to get selective and tried to pick only ones with blue on them. The whole thing didn't take much time, but Eli still loved it. We were there and back within 45 minutes, so it was well worth the time!

He's off!

The very first egg!

A whole field of eggs - they were everywhere!

Here comes the horde! Glad we made it up the hill first and could be choosy!

Walking back to the car with my booty!

I can barely lift it!

The first egg . . .

Chocolate!!

Look at all my candy! I scrambled for a lot!

Standing!

Here is Matea's newest trick - standing all on her own, with no wobbles!

Playing with the fridge farm all on my own!

Matea has been standing by her play table for a few weeks, gradually getting more and more stable and falling less and less. She's stopped leaning on the table now and stands with all her weight balanced on her feet. Now she's a pro and loves to stand and play, and has also moved on to standing by other things and playing. She has really good balance and will just stand there for a LONG time! I think she'll be cruising around this place pretty quickly!

Butterflies!

The butterflies are blooming at the Meijer Gardens again, so last week Mom and I took Lexi, Tori, Eli, and Matea off to see the butterflies and play outside (it looked slightly warm, which is better than not warm at all). :) Unlike last year, this time it wasn't as crowded and there were a TON of butterflies! And they gave the kids a passport book with pictures of butterflies to find. We found almost all of them and the kids loved looking up what kind of butterfly each one was. We only played outside for about an hour since it turned "not warm at all," but we still had a great day at the butterflies!

The most precious butterflies and caterpillars that we saw.

This guy was my favorite.

I found his twin hiding out by an orchid.

The underside of a large leaf made a good spot for a bunch of them

A butterfly outside, wrapped up snug in her cocoon.

The kids showing off their passports!