Easter Surprise (Not to me, I called it)

I was a little worried about Tonks eating treats left out by the Easter Bunny.  Eric assured me she was fine, she wouldn't touch any eggs, so there was no reason to lock her in our room at night.  We woke up to 5 stolen, open, and eaten plastic eggs.  All filled with tiny doggy poison, chocolate.  Tonks got to spend Easter morning in the dreaded doggy prison, the shower. 

Of course she was fine.  Some Yorkies die after a single chocolate chip, but not our dog.  We should rename her Eustache Dogger, because she is the dog with the iron stomach.

We tried painting eggs this year instead of the traditional dyeing.  It was fun, but just as messy.

The Living Room is where we have our egg hunt after the treasure hunt through the rest of the house.

The spoils of the day:

Showing off our special Easter clothes.  I forgot about Easter dresses until the day before.  Luckily with coupons and store 50% off specials we were able to get the girl's dresses and Ethan's tie for less than $20 EACH!!!

Ella took a pretty good picture of me and Eric.

(good because I like how I look.  I'm not sure if Eric likes it, but I don't even want to ask.  There are very few good ones of me out there!)

Preschool Highlights

We've been blessed with a very active preschool both last year and this year. Here are a few highlights from the last few months:

Pet week.  We got to bring Tonks into the actual classroom.  Tonks almost wiggled herself to death in pure joy.

National Waffle Day (?) I got to come in and help the kids make waffles.  Although we had mix and milk we didn't have the oil or eggs that the mix calls for.  Missing a few key ingredients didn't stop us from trying them anyways.  The kids made the batter and I got to spend 30 minutes making batch after batch of waffles.  Most kids had seconds and thirds which just proves anything is edible if you poor enough liquid sugar on it!

The Goat Farm.  We were here last year and both times I was struck by the thought "I'm okay never owning a goat."

Baby pigs are one of the cutest things I've ever seen though.

Class height chart.  Big surprise here (sarcasm):

P.J. and Easter Party.  Because nothing says Easter like running around in the dirt in pajamas!

The Memory, And Bulk (in words) Of An Elephant, or a Project and Day 5

A couple of years ago I was wandering through our JoAnn, which basically means I stood in the doorway and looked along all 9 square feet of floor space.  I noticed what I thought were the most perfect Easter baskets.  Not floppy, big enough for a box of peeps, ribbon and even a fabric liner to class it up.  The only problem was I was pregnant with #3 and didn't know if it was a boy or a girl yet.

I got a blue one for Ethan, a pink one for Ella and yellow, which I assumed, wrongly, would be good no matter if it was a boy or a girl.  Since I thought it was a boy I was doubley sure it would be fine.  Livi came along, and for 3 years it was fine.  Last year she noticed that Ethan had a favorite color, Ella had a favorite color, and she had YELLOW.  Nuclear blow out occured, and I promised that the next year (this year) we would paint it purple.  Who would have guessed a 3 year old had the memory of an elephant? 5 days before Easter she reminded me of that promise.

My first attempt at painting.  Ever tried to paint wicker with acrylic paint? I soon went out and bought spray paint.

Ahhhhh, much better.

Since I am my father's daughter I couldn't stop there.  I undid the lining to make a pattern, let Livi pick out some fabric and made a new one.

Voila

The finished product.

Everyone is happy...for now...until the next catastrophe.

Onto Day 5: What are the 5 things that make you happiest right now?

1.My husband, kids, parents, siblings, etc.  They are what makes my life worth living. 

The rest of these I am going to go with the things that make me happy in the moment. The fleeting happiness, rather than true joy.  Because I can.  Because I can show a funny videos and great pair of shoes.

2. Shoes...shocker.  I have found that I don't feel totally dressed up without a great pair of shoes.  For years I tried only to find the flattest shoes I possibly could, sometimes wearing ballet slippers to church dances, just so I wouldn't tower over the boys.  Eric and other tall boys were too busy dating 5'1' tiny blonds, so I was stuck with the 5'11' boys who were shorter than me if we stood on an incline.  When I started dating Eric I bought my first pair of heels.  I still have them because they symbolize so much to me.  I was still pretty close in height to Eric wearing them, but he helped me gain the confidence I needed to not care.  I have since let this freedom get a little too free, but nothing feels better when I am getting dressed than a great pair of shoes.

I know, right? These are my latest "bankruptcy shoes".  Not because they cost a ton and we will go into bankruptcy.  I do all the bankruptcies for Eric and after doing 5 I bought myself this awesome pair of shoes!

3.Seeing in my Hulu queue a new episode of favorite shows.  I love it when there is New Girl, Community, Parks and Rec, but mostly Supernatural.  Is it dumb that a 32 year old likes a show based on monsters and cute boys, on the teen channel? No, no it is not.

4. Snow.  Two weeks ago we had a great snow storm.  The kind where the lights flicker, a fire in the fireplace is a must, and the kids get two days off from school.  It is almost magic to wake up, see the snow all over, and have the kids happy to be home.  Well, the first day was magic.  By the end of day 2 I was ready for them to get back to their "important educations".
We don't have hills in Nebraska, so this is about as much sledding as they will ever get!

5. The silly things Tonks does.  When Eric said he thought getting a dog might be a good therapy for me he was right (although maybe I said that, because it certainly was brilliant).  I cannot NOT smile when I look at her.  She is just so loving, small, fluffy, and kind of silly.

She likes to sit like she is people.

Going To Heck In An Easter Basket

Easter is probably the hardest holiday for me, weight wise. I LOVE Easter candy. Not just a 12 year old girl type of crush, but a full blown stalker, want to marry it, LOVE. I have zero self control when confronted with Mini Eggs. Marshmallow Peeps tremble in fear when they see my shadow. I have been known to hide Creme Eggs from the kids so I can have them all to myself once the kidos go to bed.

That being said, I have been really ridiculously good this Easter season. I didn't buy any candy ahead of time, even though they have been in stores since February. I resisted the siren song of the Easter isle at Walmart! At least I was good, until the Easter Bunny came. I even left a note that asked him to leave less candy than usual so I wouldn't be as tempted. He left movies, stickers, even lip gloss, but there was still enough candy for me to lose all the self control I had maintained in one chocolaty binge. I think I ate my weight in sugar yesterday.

Enough about me, here are some highlights:

The day before our ward had an Easter Egg Hunt at a members house. Another benefit to living in Nebraska is that people actually live on farms here. The house we went to had several acres and the Bishopric hid over 900 eggs. They had an under 3 category for the little kids and Livi seemed to have a theme to her egg picking.
Ella and Ethan, not being the most...aggressive...egg hunters only got a handful of eggs. They tended to hang back from the mass of kids that were running like dogs after a duck (which I have seen too often).
That night I was guilted into hosting a BBQ for the two girls (and their families) that I was accompanying on the piano for Easter (long story), so we had to hurry and dye eggs before everyone arrived. Ethan wanted something a little more than just color for his eggs and he was a little put out that we didn't have time (Eric told him he had to smile, but he snuck in his two cents).
Easter morning the Easter Bunny put out the traditional clues for a treasure hunt and then since it was only 23 degrees outside the egg hunt was in the living room. After church I remembered I hadn't taken any dress-up pictures so we headed outside where I took about a hundred photos only to realize once we got back in the house that I didn't have a memory card in my camera so we headed back out for an abbreviated retry. Livi was a little hyped up on sugar and tired of being good so these were the results:

I did get a few cute ones though. A big "Thank You" goes out to our neighbors for ruining a cute picture of Ethan and Livi by leaving their old, junky, non running truck right in front of our house because it is so unattractive that they don't want it parked in front of their house. No joke.

And here are a few, mostly boring, videos (Livi has some funny reactions):

Hide The Easter Eggs, Livi Is Coming...

Easter is so fun with little kids. I love watching the delight in their eyes, and the joy at the thought of all that candy (don't love the sugar highs in the afternoon so much, but at least it only lasts until they sleep it off).

Our Easter Bunny, (we've had to talk about why different families get different things from the Easter Bunny. Not such a fun conversation) brings us a scavenger hunt around the house, and then a free for all egg hunt outside (but in this case it was raining so we did it in the living room instead). Nothing really crazy or funny happened. Mostly it was just fun, and we taped the scavenger hunt for the grandparents. The only hard part was getting a decent picture of Ethan. He is less than cooperative. Finally.

Happy Easter, or Something is Wrong With This Picture

Normally I think Easter morning is second only to Christmas as far as excitement goes, but when I am awake and ready to post the mornings activities and it is not 8:00 am yet, there is something definitely wrong with the picture. The kids were just a little too excited to get going, so goodbye morning snooze. We were up and at 'em around 6:30. Yick, that should not be allowed on a beautiful (when I say beautiful I mean the wonderful overcast days that only I seem to love) Sunday morning.
Enough of my tired tirade. Let's move on to the fun the kids had....
All three kids were running around with their Easter baskets this morning, and checking the front yard through the window to see if they could spy any eggs. We did get them to eat some healthy food for breakfast (if you count sugared cereal and eggo's as "healthy") before the festivities began. In our house the Easter Bunny left a treasure hunt with clues the kids had to follow to find some treats. This was our favorite clue that the Easter Bunny drew for us. Yes it is suppose to be Livi in her crib, it is not an alien in jail as it may appear.After the treasure hunt and the egg hunt outside the kids sat down to eat their spoils. Notice the concentration, the determination, the colored drool rolling down Livi's face.
I recorded it all for our parents, so most of you wont want to sit through watching my kids run around, but there is something ADORABLE about Livi running, floppy hair that Eric did yesterday, with a basket bigger than she is.
Quote of the morning: Eric told Ella we were having a "yummy Easter dinner." To which Ella replied totally serious "We're having candy for dinner?"

Below are the thumbnails for the videos. Just click on them and it will take you to my photobucket account. The images were taking too long to upload to blogger, sorry!