Thursday, April 24, 2014

Easter Weekend 2014

Easter weekend was a busy one!  There was lots of fun stuff happening in Stillwater and, of course, we wanted to take time to celebrate the real reason for Easter.

Friday, my mom, sister, and nephew arrived mid-afternoon.  After a little outdoor play time, we loaded up the kids and hit the town for a little shopping fun.  While we were out, we also picked up our race packets for the Remember the Ten run the next day.  Since the boys were such troopers, they were rewarded with a surprise when we returned to the house.

That night, we invited Uncle Ross (my cousin who happens to live in Stillwater) over for some egg dying fun.  My sister (who is a little OCD) was nervous about this event and I was told I used my teacher voice a few times, but overall it was a blast!

I got the idea to use cheap kitchen wisks for the boys to be able to easily put the eggs in and out of the dye off of pinterest, but I guess I never pinned it, so I can't tell you who came up with this genius idea.  It worked like a charm!


Sister enjoyed watching the boys from her Go-Pod (seriously, one of our best baby purchases ever!).  I'm sure she'll be ready to be in the middle of all of it next year.

"What are those crazy boys doing?"

After the eggs had a short time to dry, the hunting began.  But first they had to run a few circles in the yard.  I'm really not sure what this was all about, they just started running in circles.



When they finally started actually looking for the eggs, they came up with a system.  Joseph would go ahead and pick up the egg, then hand it to Bryar who would run it to the porch and hand it to an adult while Joseph was on his way to the next egg.




Sarah helped with clean-up during this activity.

Here are a couple more pictures from the night.  Just because I think they are adorable.


After hiding and finding our eggs multiple times, we all went inside for an early-ish bedtime.

The next morning, we all woke up ready for a fun day.  They boys ate bunny pancakes.


Sam, Mindy, and I prepared for our races.  We all participated in the annual Remember the Ten event with Mindy and some friends running the 5k and Sam and I running the 10k (My first!  I had no clue how fast I would run it since I normally have to push my jumbo double jogging stroller, so I set a goal of 1 hour for myself.  I only missed my goal by about 2 1/2 minutes!  Sam, on the other hand, finished in 58 minutes 18 seconds!).


We didn't catch up with Mindy while we were still at the race, so we took a group picture at the house.

After lunch (Sam and I rewarded ourselves with yummy Joe's cheese fries) and a little more outdoor play time (it was so gorgeous that weekend), our guests left and we all took a nap.  We woke up from nap renewed and ready for the rest of the day.  We first ventured to Petco for some goldfish for our little front yard pond that I recently cleaned out. 

Joseph: "I pop it."
Mom and Dad:  "NOOOOO!"
And that's when we took the fish away.

We dropped the fish off at the house to adjust the water temperatures, then headed downtown for the arts festival.  We had a lot of fun walking around looking at everything.  I'm pretty sure that Joseph's favorite part was that his dinner came in a car.

We returned home in time to watch the Thunder basketball game and ride Ol Blue for a little bit.

Sunday morning arrived, and, of course, I had Easter baskets waiting for the kids.  They were mostly books (I think I have an addiction) with a couple of small items like water bottles, sunglasses, and treats thrown in.

Doesn't Sarah look thrilled?  I bought personalized Easter bags for the kids instead of baskets, and didn't want to buy additional baskets that I didn't really need, so I stuck all their stuff in storage containers out of their bedrooms.


He was excited to learn that some of the eggs had stuff in them.

He also loved these wind up trucks (although I think Daddy tired of them quickly :).

Fine motor practice while Sarah tries to crawl in the background.  I call that a win-win for Easter baskets.

She was after Mr. Potato Head.



Or, more specifically, his feet. No, she's not crawling, but she can somehow find her way to interesting objects.

We then ate a quick breakfast, changed clothes, and headed out the door for church.  When we returned home, Sarah was in desperate need of a nap, so I had to lay her down before I could take any pictures of them together.  I decided to go ahead and snap a few shots of Joseph before I took off his crisp, white shirt for lunch.

He was disappointed that I gave him two eggs with nothing in them.

"I throw it in water."  We were right next to the pond.  He didn't really throw it.

Me: "If you smile, I'll give you an egg with a treat in it."
Joseph: "Cheese."

And then he was finished with pictures.

Since I didn't get any pictures of Sarah in her dress all day, here are a few shots from a Sunday earlier this month.



After lunch and naps (the kids both slept for over three hours!), we ventured to the dog park with the crew.  Sam and Joseph took the bike and trailer (one of their favorite things to do together) while Sarah and I drove with the dogs.  Since kids aren't allowed in the dog park (for good reasons), the kids and I hung out in one of the dugouts (the Stillwater dog park is a couple of old softball fields that they converted) where Joseph talked to every dog that walked by even though they couldn't have cared less about the kid still wearing his bike helmet playing in the dugout.

 We returned from the dog park exhausted and ready for bed. 

I also feel it's worth noting that we read both of these books pretty much daily all month long.  I highly recommend them if you have kids around the ages of ours.  They were short enough to keep the kids' attention while still focusing on the real reason for Easter (especially The Easter Story) and they are both board books so they are less likely to get destroyed by little hands.