Mini-Texodus, April 2014- Easter Party Fun

It was so much fun to be able to celebrate a holiday with our Grandma and Grandpa and cousins! The kids got to decorate (and eat!) a LOT of eggs this year. Grandpa is surprisingly serious about his egg-coloring, we learned :)

On Saturday before Easter, we went to the Easter party at Smiths. They close off aisles and scatter candy around and then kids can come and pick it up. It is separated by age group, and Bear totally killed it in the 1-3 category.  He had so much candy he could barely lift the basket :) 

It was a good thing he got so much, because Sam and EJ didn't get much- I don't think they were aggressive enough to push other kids over for some taffy. Bear was happy to share his loot with everyone.  Janie did pretty well, too and was very generous with her bounty.  After donuts and milk at the store, it was time to head back to Grandpa's for an egg hunt!

Aunt Cyndi had the great idea of color-coding the eggs and she was a really good hider. The kids had fun finding them all over the front and back yards. 

Each egg had money, candy, a prize OR a special "pick a prize" paper where they could pick from Grandpa's toys and other cool prizes. Best Easter party ever!

Mini-Texodus, April 2014- Part 2

My favorite part of visiting UT is watching my kids get to hang out with their cousins and get to know their Awesome Aunts and Uncles better. We miss our family so much because we are far away. It is such a treat just to "hang out". As an added treat, my kids got to go eat lunch with their cousins Sam and Thomas at school. Their school lunch is awesome and WAAAYYY better than what my kids get!  The girls thought it was cool to see a different Elementary.

We were all excited that Aunt Cyndi's house was Kittenpalooza!  These babies were so fun to watch and snuggle. I had to seriously remind myself that 3 cats and one doggie are too many furbabies!

Aunt Cyndi really knows how to do holidays. She boiled up a ZILLION eggs for the kids to color and they had a great time together!

Sam wanted to know what it would be like to throw an egg at a house, so cool Aunt Cyndi let all the kids throw a (boiled) egg at the house :)

Mini-Texodus, April 2014- Part 1

 The kids were so excited to go on a "Big, Big Airplane" for the first time that any of them could remember (EJ and Birdy took flights as babies).  They were so cute rolling their bags through the airport!

Our gate was by a big window where we could watch planes take off and land. It also had a ramp where passengers got off their planes. Bear sat and waved at everyone that got off their planes. It was a fun people-watching opportunity to see who would wave back or smile at the cute kid welcoming them to Dallas :)

Getting ready to go! EJ was lucky because she got her own seat across the aisle!

When we got to Grandma and Grandpa's house, the local Smiths had a petting zoo with tiny week-old baby mini-goats. They were so cute I was trying to figure out how to smuggle one back to TX!

We learned Aunt Jenn is a pro at rainbow loom. She showed both girls some new tricks!

I took the girls to Temple Square in SLC to hear The Mormon Tabernacle Choir Broadcast. It was so cool! It was in the old Tabernacle, so that is always special. They had the orchestra and they sang selections from Handel's Messiah for Easter. It was really neat and the girls enjoyed it in spite of themselves... 

 After the broadcast, we toured the Conference Center. Our guide was great and took time to point out the great artwork throughout. The girls thought it was so cool to see the place where they watched General Conference just a week or two before!

We were so excited to see SNOW when we got back to Grandma's house!

The kids loved helping Grandpa take care of his plants. We helped clean out the garden for spring!

 Grandpa took us on an adventure to see the trains! Birdy was bored, but Bear and EJ thought it was a lot of fun!

Easter 2013

On Friday, the kids had a day off of school (and with Spring Break only 2 weeks ago, we really needed another day off... )  Some of the Moms in our ward organized a picnic and egg hunt for the kiddos. It was a lot of fun!  Notice Birdy's Hello Kitty ears.  She went to a birthday party the day before and got those and insisted on wearing them all weekend!

Bear was really into "picking eggs". It was fun to see him get it this year and be so excited!

Friday night we colored our Easter eggs.  We did the "volcano eggs" again, but we have decided to call them "fizzy eggs" instead- it seems more appropriate.  DMP and Bear missed out last year, so they were especially excited about them!

Our beautiful eggs!

 The Easter Bunny now comes to our house on Saturday for lots of reasons.  First, the Atonement is kind of a big deal, and I've been bugged for a couple of years by how the Bunny takes over the celebration.  Also, it was SOOO much easier to get kids ready for church when we weren't trying to rush through egg hunts, eating candy and etc.  We just hung out and played all day and had no real pressure to be anywhere. 

Also, as you can see, the Bunny and Santa got a bit confused.  He may have gone overboard a bit with gathering "non candy" things for their baskets and they ended up with a lot of "presents".  Live and learn, right?

The kids had a successful egg hunt all over the house.

Bear was only interested in eggs that sounded like "coin-ys" first, and jelly beans second.  Forget stickers and other non-shakey prizes!  He was also hilarious- we gave the kids baggies to collect all their candy in so they could empty their eggs. He would NOT let us empty any eggs- even the ones that had squinkies or other toys.  He would look at it and then insist it go back in the egg in his basket!

On Sunday, we got all dolled up in our Easter clothes.  Thanks to Cynj for outfitting Bear for Easter for yet another year. I'm so glad to have your boy hand-me-downs!

Here are my pretty girls...

The whole family!

One more for the road!

Hope you all had a happy Easter weekend, too!

Easter!

The kids woke up to filled Easter baskets and a note from the Bunny that he would be back to hide their eggs while they were at church.  Then we got ready for the usual Easter pictures.  They didn't turn out too badly this year!

One thing I love about TX is the great dresses I find at Kid to Kid and thrift stores. There are so many cute ones in great condition. I think people don't dress up for church as much here, so there are a lot of flower-girl/Easter/Christmas dresses to be had.  I was super-lucky and found coordinating dresses for the girls- same print, different fabric and trims!  They looked adorable.

 I love that every picture of Birdy has this pasted-on sort-of-evil-elf smile.

 Bear's shirt is courtesy of Cyndi's hand-me-downs (thanks Cyndi!) it fit the girls dresses so nicely!

All I could get out of this guy was the "Cheese" face.  Oh, LOOK! An Airplane!

The whole family. I tried hard to find a new Easter dress that would coordinate with the pastel scheme of the rest of the crew, but no such luck!  Next year?

The Bunny hoped to hide eggs outside for after-church hunting, but a huge rainstorm started rather dramatically during Sacrament Meeting.  One of the speakers said "and then Jesus said "Into thy hands I commend my spirit" and died" and there was a loud clap of thunder.  It was pretty amusing :)

We still had fun hunting inside. Bear especially liked the game of picking up eggs and putting them in his basket. Picking up things to put in containers is his favorite game.  We just had to stop his sisters from taking all the eggs out from under him!

Happy kids with their haul.  Notice how Birdy has the most? She is a champion egg-finder and for two years now EJ has also "helped" her by pointing out more eggs. We keep telling EJ that she is just fine and doesn't need help, but I guess the kind big-sister instinct goes too deep :)

Happy Easter, y'all!