Easter

The kids woke this morning to Easter baskets filled with goodies. As part of simplifying, their baskets each held only a few things. They each got a chocolate bunny, a $1 coin, a marshmallow lollipop and a couple other small things. Even though it wasn't much, it was plenty and they loved what they received. Sweet Clara promptly decided that she would put her coin in the collection plate at church this morning.

The sun was a little bright as we left for church. I'm so proud of my boy; he kept his tie on all the way through lunch! I thought for sure it wouldn't make it out of the house before being ripped off. I didn't get the kids official Easter clothes this year in yet another effort to simplify. This was big for me. I usually want an extra special dress for Clara or want them to coordinate, but I realized that's completely unnecessary. I just had her pick one of the dresses I got for her several months ago to be her Easter dress and she waited until today to wear it. And Robert got a $3.00 tie from Target to make his Easter outfit special.

After church, we went to lunch at Pappasitos. They had Easter eggs for the kids and the Easter bunny was walking around mingling with everyone. And when we got home, lo and behold, for the first time ever, the Easter bunny had visited our back yard!

I love Clara's expression in this next photo.

But I love this photo even more because she just placed that obviously extra special egg in her little brother's basket.

I can safely say that this shark shaped egg was Robert's favorite.

They each got about 10 eggs and were ecstatic with their findings.

A perfect, simple Easter.

Easter

Chris and I attended a wedding downtown the night before. We picked up the kids up from the babysitter's house around 10:30 and they were both still awake. It was about 11:00 before we got them in bed, so Sunday morning came extra early for all of us. Thankfully the bunny kicked it in gear Saturday night and didn't disappoint. Clara and Robert enjoyed rifling through their Easter baskets when the awoke on Sunday morning.

If you remember, Robert is in his "don't look at the camera at any cost" phase and was tired on top of that, so this was the best picture I got of the two of them in the Easter best.

Randy and Danielle graciously invited us to join their family for Easter lunch. After lunch, the kids had one last little egg hunt in the backyard. Robert was a pro by this time.

We went to go inside and had to pull Robert off of a riding toy on the porch and he came un-glued! He went into total meltdown mode, so we had to get out of there fast with Robert kicking and screaming.

Egg-o-Mania

We attended the church Easter egg hunt the day before Easter. There were bounce houses, face painting and sno cones before the hunt began and the Easter bunny could been seen mingling among the attendees. I threw Robert in the bounce house and he looked pretty lost. He didn't do much bouncing; he mainly just laid there looking pathetic. I wish he enjoyed bouncing more because I sure do enjoy having him contained for a few minutes.

Here we are waiting for the Easter Bunny to give us the signal to start hunting. It was fun trying to keep Robert from going after the eggs until time. He knew what to do this time and wanted to get the show on the road.

I love this picture. She looks so beautiful.

Two cuties inspecting their goodies.

Oh my, isn't he just the most handsome little guy?

He's handsome, but he's still a little toot about taking pictures. He refused to sit with the other kids for a picture, so this is the best I got. I would have been fine if he would have just looked at me, but no. He's a stubborn little booger.

Another Bunny

We went to take pictures with the Easter bunny after Clara's Easter egg hunt. She's wearing a dress we brought back from Paris. It's a very sweet dress; I need to get a better picture of her in it.

Robert wanted nothing to do with the bunny. He was okay with him until I went to put him in his lap. I do love a good Easter Bunny pic!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Easter

I thought for sure Clara would finally have a holiday celebration on one of her school days. Since there was no school on Friday I assumed Thursday would be the Easter egg hunt. Of course not. It was on Wednesday. Her teacher said they would be having a special snack at 9:30 and then hunt eggs at 10:00. When we got there about 9:25, I noticed a few cookie crumbs and sprinkles on the table but I decided not to ask about whether or not we missed the snack, hoping against hope that she would have forgotten about that part.

I had to leave because they were practicing something for graduation and I wasn't supposed to see it. So I went to Walgreen's and picked up a little basket, eggs and jelly beans for Robert because it hadn't occurred to me that he might go ballistic at not having eggs and a basket.

When I got back to the school, it was time for the hunt. The kids lined up with their baskets and then hopped down the hall to the door. They were like locusts and the hunt was quickly over. As soon as all of them had passed by, I threw a few little eggs out for Robert. That kept him busy and happy.

As soon as all of the eggs had been located by the big kids, I heard one boy yell, "I see some more eggs!", and I looked over just in time to see four or five little boys barreling towards Robert and the two tiny eggs at his feet. I was able to convince them they didn't really want them because there was only one little jelly bean in them. The kids got to stand around and compare eggs for a few minutes before heading back inside.

Then it was back to the room and to the part that I always dread. Time to be the only one in the class that has to leave the fun. Woohoo! I told Clara it was time to go. She completely ignored me. After several "it's time to go's" she finally stood up and started crying. Oy. As we were walking out, she remembered she was also supposed to stay for a special treat, so I told her that I thought they had their treat before she got there. So then I was a bad mom for being late. She was quite unhappy with the situation.

But then, as we were walking down the hall to leave, we ran into this guy!

And all was once again right in her world. Thank you Mr. Easter Bunny for being in the right spot at the right time.

Some (Not Very Good) Bluebonnet Pics

I had a few errands to run the other day so I figured I'd throw some bluebonnet coordinated clothes on the kids and stop for a picnic at the park with the bluebonnets afterward. (For those non-Texan readers, yes, you are required to put your children in clothing that will compliment the patch of bluebonnets that you force them to sit in. Non-coordinated clothing is unacceptable.) Another thing to know about bluebonnets is they are wildflowers and can mostly be seen growing on the sides of highways. I really don't like pulling over to the side of the road with a quick little toddler just to get a cute picture though and am pretty lazy about finding a good, non-busy, off the beaten path spot.

This park has a nice big patch of them, but they keep them roped off for the better part of the season. That's why I don't have very good ones this year. If you remember last year, I sat them just on the other side of the rope. Since Robert was only 4 months old, I knew we weren't going to trample the flowers at all so I felt fine with my rule-breaking. Now back to the present. Clara stood on this side of the rope and I got a few good ones of her. Robert, well, Robert was being a perfect little 16 month old boy. He just wanted to pull on the rope and I had to snatch him from the other side a couple of times. And then he just ran around on the grass, mocking me and my camera.

You can just see it in his eyes, "Let me at 'em! Let me at 'em!"

The boy just refuses to sit still!

They played on the playground for a few minutes and then we had lunch. I shared my apple with Robert but he eventually wasn't happy with just sharing, so I relinquished the apple. Oh, the cheesy grin is back. I've missed it these last couple of months.

Easter

Tanya and the kids came to Pecos on Friday night and Tim, Linsey and Brody got there Saturday. The kids dyed Easter eggs and decorated cupcakes on Friday night and then we went out to the farm on Saturday for lunch and an Easter egg hunt.

Mason lives out at the farm now and he spent a lot of time cleaning it up for company. He even put up swings for the kids. It looked great. The Dominguez kids joined us for the egg hunt. Thank goodness we had 4 extra hunters. The amount of treats the Easter bunny left was insane. Each kid had their trusty "overflow bag" for when their bucket was full. This year he also brought CapriSuns, goldfish, animal crackers, peanut butter crackers, fruit snacks and quarters.

This next picture is a little blurry, but it was too cute not to share. Joe put all of Clayton's candy in this huge bag and Clayton insisted on dragging it back to the house by himself.

We were all frantically running around before church on Easter, so we didn't get a group shot of the kiddos. I did manage to snap one of Clara and Robert in their matching outfits. I took Robert's bib off just long enough to get a picture and look how soaked he was.

This was the best we could do for a group shot after church. Grayson refused to sit, which is why Tanya jumped in the picture. All you former Pecos church people, do you notice anything different? Yep, new pews and carpet. No more orange carpet and green pews and now there's only one aisle down the center. It looks really nice.

Since all of our festivities took place the day before, we came home for sandwiches and naps and said goodbye to all of our cousins who had to return home.