easter 2011: the rundown

i have what feels like a thousand photos to sift through from all the Easter festivities, but this one is my favorite. i would love, love, love more than anything to have this put on canvas. it sums up our Easter perfectly. wet & soggy....a beautiful mess.

since we're already 10 days past the holiday, i've just grabbed the photos that stand out the most to document the festivites. grammy and papa at the beach appreciate these type of posts since they don't get to see the girls very often. (what they don't know is that i appreciate the time spent sharing their antics even more so because i'm quite forgetful in my old age, *ahem*)

anywho.....
easter 2011: firefighter egg-hunt

this is a yearly tradition for us, of which we are three years in. it's sponsored by our local township's firefighters and always the day before Easter. and, boy do they spoil these kids!

it takes them a few hours to put out thousands of eggs filled with chocolates and other assorted candies. then they line the kids up into age groups, put on a siren and the kids snatch them all up in less than a minute. LOL! so much fun watching the kids decide on their "plan of attack" for gathering the eggs.

the kids always have a ton of fun regardless of the amount of eggs they get. they just know it's a fun little tradition to participate in, one which we always follow up with time around the table dyeing eggs.

this year, they were exceptionally giddy because the attendance was a little on the low side due to soggy weather. if you can't tell by the photo above, ashlyn hit the jackpot in her age group.

afterward she was full of giggles as she told everyone she saw about what happened. she was running on the field, slipped, and went hydroplaning across the field. of course, when that happened her bucket of eggs went spilling over. so a handsome firefighter came to her rescue and gathered them all back up for her.

then when she ran out of room in her bucket, she then started stuffing them in her pockets and into her rainboots, LOL. cracked.me.up.

the funnest part is afterward when the anticipation of hearing your number called is almost unbearable---for the kiddos anyways---because the firefighters raffle off 4 bikes and 20+ easter baskets filled with goodies.



spidergirl's favorite this year seemed to be talking to the bunny more than anything else. that girl doesn't know a stranger.

i have to admit, i get a silly grin across my face every time i see doug wanting to capture the same kind of things i do. it's kinda unbelievable how easy the advances in technology have made picture taking & sharing.

in seconds, he snapped this picture and shared it with friends. :)

(spidergirl does not have a black eye....that would be leftover makeup from playing 'dress-up' the night before)

easter 2011: coloring eggs - observations from the other side of the table.

it's said that a picture is worth a thousand words, so i thought i'd make some observations of these photos from our egg coloring session this year.

i asked them to change their clothes into something that they didn't care about if they happened to spill. she went straight for the Princess shirt. she's no longer a fan of the Princesses. she wears this shirt only as pajamas---never out of the house. such a big change from her younger self. her hair is down and in her eyes--too grown up for a ponytail. notice the two-at-a-time dyeing process. much like her personality, she can never just do one thing at a time--usually juggling three or four even. her egg carton is lined up just-so and she repeatedly would stop and say "just wait...." then counted and talk to herself to make sure she didn't mess up her process. she was attempting rainbow order, but got out of sequence when her sister was hogging the yellow and green and she had to skip ahead to blue. in the meantime spidergirl was mixing colors, dyeing tops and bottoms different colors, etc. and ashlyn about had a meltdown. in her world there is one and only one way to do things.....and none of it involves mixing. she has a necklace around her neck snatched from my accessories. and the dot-art taped to the window is a favorite activity right now.

spidergirl surprised us this year by taking her time and enjoying every bit of the process. usually she's too interested in getting back to watching cartoons that she doesn't really care much about sitting still for a craft. she's a big fan of experimenting and she looooves putting the plastic shrinkwrap wrappers on her eggs. her fingernails are painted, all but the left thumb. she says it tastes gross to suck her thumb when there is nail polish on it. her face is covered in chocolate---most likely the same chocolate that she got at the egg hunt earlier in the day. i also spy a "R" on her right hand. she's still learning right from left and doesn't get the concept that the pointer finger and thumb on her left hand form the letter "L" the proper way and is an easy way to discern. she needed to know because they were playing Twister just before coloring eggs.

they each had their own dozen this year because both girls now eat the boiled whites. this was ashlyn's dozen, in rainbow order, yellow still dyeing. as you see, she was finally convinced that mixing was cool after all. :)

easter 2011: the baskets

easter morning surprises!


easter 2011: grams & papa's house

easter is always a highly anticipated day for family gathering because it's usually the first time we get to see Grandma since we were together on Christmas Eve. so, you can only imagine how much emotion this photo conveys.

Grandma is 80 years old and still full of life! she's such a patient woman, and thoroughly enjoys watching her great grandchildren cause a ruckus whenever we're together.

spidergirl can't resist chasing the dogs (& sometimes the cat) all over the place. i have to remind her often, the less you touch/pet the animals, the longer we get to stay. even with her allergy meds and weekly shots she still has asthma attacks....and they are worse after visits.

but she gets so much joy out of playing with them. i mean, look at that smile. :)

while finishing touches are being worked out in the kitchen, i always try to keep the girls entertained with my camera. keeps them out of grams' hair and fills my picture folder. double score! i adore this one with ashlyn. such a genuine, non-forced smile....that she's not trying to hide.

i love it. especially because she wasn't much into picture taking on easter, so i don't have many of her at all.

but spidergirl? that girl was hamming it up for the camera, big time. and she was full of nothing but ornery. can't you tell? little stinker.

cute little stinker, nonetheless. :)

she really looks forward to holidays at grams & papa's house because she gets to see her cousin Justin. ashlyn loves it because spidergirl torments someone else for a change, LOL.

not only do we look forward to seeing grandma, but also my brother. he's single ladies....and handsome. :) email me. kidding. kidding. he'd kill me if he knew i said that.

he doesn't like my camera in his face, but i don't give him much of a choice.

after dinner papa always 'hides' the eggs in their huge yard. there's only been one year that we had to do the hunt inside because of weather----it was freezing. this year should have been inside too because the yard was soggy.

but the kids all had boots on, so what the hey. they were sloshing through the soggy grass hunting for eggs and splashing up mud. you should have seen them----covered from mid-back down. well, that's where the very top photo came from.

good thing grams has a tradition of buying them a new pair of pajamas for Easter----they needed the change of clothes. ha.

after egg hunting, the kids always gather around the table dumping eggs and sorting out candy and money.
then they count them all to make sure none are missing. then they head back out to find the couple that are---usually with the adults helping too. this is the only year they got them all on the first try!

and from there on out, i have no pictures because i promptly fell asleep on the couch while everyone else played games. *blushing*

two minutes into our drive home, i looked back and saw spidergirl sleeping too. she played hard, but doesn't she look adorable? not sure how she can stand that seatbelt cutting into her stomach like that. oy.

and that concludes my super long post about easter! are you still awake?

next up.......spring break shenanigans. :)