Happy Easter!

We do love our annual Easter celebration with friends and family, egg hunts, and dinner.

I only brought out my camera for the kids’ hunt, because the one Dwayne does for the adults is so fiendish that I need my full bandwidth.

Actually, this is the best shot I got of all the kids…

 

As soon as we got home from church, Wesley ran in to change out of his Easter clothes and into his Spiderman PJs. 

That clipboard?  That’s Dwayne’s list of where he hid all the eggs for the grownup hunt.  Note to self, steal list next year.

   

 

 

Easter Baskets

Have we mentioned that we’re not morning people?  At least, Dwayne and I aren’t and we are doing our best to convince our children to do likewise.  So to keep our salvation Easter morning, we gave them their Easter baskets Saturday afternoon (um, once they cleaned up the house, which seems cruel, but it was an extremely effectively bride, and besides, 90% of the mess is directly theirs).

They each got a bow-and-arrow set.  It was highly entertaining for all. 

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I would have gotten a picture of Kyla, but she had taken hers outside right away and was probably off shooting game so that her family could survive the winter, a la Pa of Little House in the Big Woods.

Dropping, I mean, Dying Easter Eggs

Having done this several times with children, I now always dye Easter eggs outside.  Each kid took turns tipping over a dye cup, and Wesley dropped a statistically significant number of  eggs. Overall, a successful experience.

 

5 at the Zoo

The Friday of Spring  Break—time to cram adventure and friends into our last day off!  So Piper and Kyla each asked a friend to enjoy a day at the zoo.

 

Sitting kids on the fence to watch the sloth bears is frowned upon by all those who are not managing 5 kids too short to see without being hoisted.

 

 

 

Feeding the budgies is always a highlight for the kids.

Easter Egg Hunt, Whidbey Style

I’m about to show some really cute pictures of my progeny, so I’ll even it out by showing a few ugly ones I snapped of Wesley.  Balance, my friends, balance.

 

We were at the cabin and hit upon the weekend of the community egg hunt.  I had mixed up the time, so we had time to eat lunch and Piper taught me to make dandelion chains (which she sat down with a bunch of flowers and figured herself—typical Piper).  Wesley helped by picking her lots of flowers, and Kyla wore the jewelry and then went off exploring on her own (typical Kyla). 

[Kyla is currently our beloved toothless wonder, but when she had lost two more teeth, Piper went and pulled one of hers out.  I cannot swear it was loose to begin with.]

Before the Big Wilt, Piper was the most festive egg hunter.

 

People, shmeople.  This is what really stole the camera’s eye.  Look at the beautiful April weather!

Wesley Strikes Again.

I can’t count the number of “Oh, Wesleys!” (a phrase similar to many four-letter exclamations used by those without Wesleys) in this picture. But let’s start:

 

1-3) Total chair foul—not eating at table, chair not returned to table, and breaking a posture rule that I didn’t know I’d have to verbalize.

4) Jar of Nutella out, with Wesley’s knife.

4.5) Make that two jars of Nutella.

5) Odd colored leg—what had he been into that he had been covering up by actually wearing clothes (dead giveaway, child).

Backyard Visitors

Ever since the new construction started a few years ago below our “back 40”, we haven’t seen deer come through our property.  And then, all of sudden, there were three!  And because it was too early for veggies, roses. or apples, we were all thrilled to spy on them from our upper window.

 

It does look kind of luscious, doesn’t it, Deer?

Well, You *Were* Dressed to Go to School

April Fool’s

Last year, I played a few April Fool’s pranks on the kids.  They brought it up occasionally over the year and then started really setting high expectations for it as we got closer and closer to the day. By planning in advance (365 days, in fact), I had managed to set myself up for failure and the kids for disappointment. 

I won’t do anything mean or that causes me ridiculous amounts of work (putting saran wrap over the toilet loses on both counts), so I like doing silly things.  This year, I made hamburgers and french fries for breakfast with a glass of orange juice (and if that looks like a sausage patty between two pancakes and Julienne cut apples, as well as orange Jell-O, well, there’s no fooling you either!).

The kids liked it, except for the eating it part, but quickly just wanted to know what my next trick was going to be.  I’m kinda of a one-trick pony, and any residual magic had to be used to get them to school on time while retaining part of my soul and some of their hearing.  Sigh.