Easter lunch

After Church we headed over to Aunt Domi's for Easter lunch and some more quality time with family. Here are all the cousins in the family.

And here is everyone (missing only Uncle Al and Mama Kay and Papa).

Andrew shows off our feast, which included ham, lamb, and many delicious sides (one of which was my grandmother's recipe for scalloped potatoes - a dish I had every Easter growing up and was excited to make for the first time).

Then it was time to play some more. Virginia pushed Juliette on the swing for a while, which she loved.

Ben and Caroline on the slides.

Caroline running down the side walk.

Abbey chasing a ball.

Juliette found a big ball!

After carrying that, she was a bit tired so she relaxed and watched the others play with Uncle Brandon.

Cutie pie!

Ah, she found more candy...it was her personal mission all day to find candy that someone had left around...she was quite successful too!

We had a fabulous Easter and I hope everyone else did too! HAPPY EASTER!!

Easter morning

With all the preparations behind us, we woke up and it was finally Easter morning! And look - the kids got baskets from the Easter Bunny!

But then it was time to get down to business and find those eggs that the Easter Bunny hid around our house! Oh that clever bunny put some in Juliette's shoes - luckily Ben was on to his clever ways and found them!

Abbey found an egg!

Even Juliette got into finding eggs (when she was taking a break from eating candy right through the foil wrappers).

Then we looked outside and realized there were eggs hidden out there too!

Looking around the yard for more eggs.

Good job Juju!

Yay! Everyone found eggs!

Then after a delicious pancake breakfast (thanks Daddy), we headed off to Church. The children may have all been in a sugar coma, but there were all excellent throughout the entire mass, which made it quite enjoyable for us as well! Unfortunately we didn't get a good picture of them after Church as they were about done sitting still and quiet at that point!

But here is a cute one of Juju in her new Easter dress.

Church Egg Hunt

Every year, our church has a blessing of the Easter baskets and then an egg hunt for all the kids. So, we invited Aunt Domi, Uncle Brandon, Hunter, Caroline, Aunt Theresa, Uncle David, Aunt Carolyn, Madelyn and Virginia (who were up visiting for the weekend) to come along. Look - Abbey found an egg!

Caroline helps Juliette get a few eggs too.

Virginia found a prize in one of her eggs.

Here's the whole crew after the hunt.

Ben off to find more eggs!

Then we got to meet the Easter bunny! As usual, Abbey wouldn't go near the Easter bunny, but did wave to him as we left (which I consider more progress). Juliette apparently also does not like characters as she screamed when put on his lap. That is why I am in the picture as well with all the cousins - the only way I could get both girls in the picture! Luckily, Ben and Caroline were happy to sit on his lap!

Then it was back to our house for some relaxation and reading with Uncle David...appropriately reading Juliette's favorite book "David Goes to School"

While Uncle Brandon napped on the couch, Abbey took the opportunity (with encouragement from Aunt Domi) to decorate him with stickers. I think he really liked the look when he woke up!

Dye Those Eggs!

Next up in preparing for Easter...dye the eggs of course! Juliette looks ready to get going on those eggs!

Again, Abbey is very serious about her creativity.

Look how proud she is of that bright yellow egg! And yes, that is dye on her nose...a side effect of being an artist.

Juliette dyes an egg with help from Daddy.

Good job everyone!

Daddy made me an egg!

Ben has a pirate egg...argghh!

Juliette's "J" egg.

Easter Preparation

Well, with the technical difficulties we have had with Picasa and the craziness of Easter, I have a lot of catching up to do! Thank you for your patience and hopefully Picasa will work and let me get a bunch of posts done. After Papa's party weekend, it was time to start preparing for Easter. We had Caroline, Aunt Domi, and Aunt Theresa over to do some paper mache Easter egg crafts. We made the eggs by putting paper mache over a balloon. Once it dried, we were able to pop the balloon and have a hard egg that we then got to decorate. Here is everyone working on painting their eggs.

Abbey is my crafty child - she loves all crafts and is usually much better at it than I would expect for a 2.5 year old. As you can see, she is taking the painting of her egg very seriously.

Juliette is able to decorate her egg with help from Aunt Domi.

Here are the finished eggs - Juliette's is the purple one, Ben's is the green one (note - he decorated it to look like a rocket ship - the red spot is the fire engine making it go) and the pink one is Abbey's.

On Good Friday, we headed over to Aunt Theresa's house to make some Easter themed sugar cookies. Here are the kids getting ready to use the mixer to make the cookie.

Then it was time to roll out the dough and use the cookie cutters - we had ducks, bunnies, tulips and butterflies.

There was also some fun in the car while the cookies were baking.

Then it was time to ice and decorate the cookies. Again, you can see the seriousness of the task for Abbey.

Juliette preferred to eat the cookies rather than decorate them!