Easter Festivties

Well, for some reason this year, we didn't go do a city wide or church egg hunt. I guess my mind just wasn't all with it this year, but it didn't happen. I didn't even think about it until Saturday afternoon when all the egg hunts were over. The boys didn't ask about it or anything either, so we didn't go to one. (Probably cause I don't like having the candy in the house) But we did color Easter eggs. Ben had the day off on Friday, so we went shopping and among other things picked an egg dye kit. That evening we began dying our eggs. Saturday evening the boys finished decorating them. Braden kept dropping them and cracking them, but he had fun nonetheless. With his obsessive nature though, he got pretty upset every time he'd break one. So, I'd take that one and decorate it and give him another one. lol. The lillys in the middle of the table were a craft Mom did with her Missionette class--very cute!

One of Ben's finished products.

The finished products!

After we finished with the eggs, I had them help me "stuff" eggs for the egg hunt on Easter. I had bought a few packs of additional eggs to help Mom fill some for the hunt. She and I had spent the day together on Thursday and had done a bunch that day and had stuff leftover, so I went and picked up some more eggs to put the remainder of the stuff in. They loved helping! Especially with the money! :)

Easter

The boys dressed up for church. For some reason Ben was looking through his closet and found this suit in the back of his closet. He brought it to me and said, "look what i found in the back of my closet Mommy! I'm going to go try it on!" It fit, so he said he wanted to wear it for Easter. So we began dilligently looking for a shirt to go under it and I ended up taking a jaunt to Walmart at 11 pm after Ben had gone to bed, to find him a short sleeved collarless shirt, since he was determined that he would be too hot with a long sleeved shirt on and he said he wanted to wear the suit coat the whole time at church. So, I spoiled him once again and went and found him this blue shirt for $3.50 at my favorite all-night shopping haven :) He was THRILLED when he got up and saw it! Braden has a black suit too, but he wore it about 3 weeks ago and he was about to bust out the seams of it then, so I didn't force it upon him again today. They would have looked so cute in matching outfits!

We happened to get to church (the second service) a few minutes early and had the opportunity to take a couple photos with the boys before they had to go to their Sunday School classes.

Isaiah and Braden at lunch at "Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Sheila's" house.

The kiddos....

Easter was obviously a lot different this year. It was so difficult not having Grandma with us, but we tried our best to keep our minds off the negative focus on the positive of getting to spend the time together as a family. It was great to get to see Grandpa. He has been having a tremendously difficult time with his knee for about 3 weeks now. I think his body is finally saying, "Hey, slow down a little bit." He's gone non stop for the past 9 months taking care of Grandma, so now it's time for some recooperation I'm sure. He said Steph worked on his knee last night and it really helped, so hopefully she will be able to continue helping give him some relief and get him back in tip top shape :) He was very quiet today. I felt so bad for him. I know he was missing Grandma, ESPECIALLY today. Easter and Christmas are her very favorite days of the year and I know his heart was just breaking not having her with us. It's SOOOOO hard seeing him without her. When I drove up and saw the car sitting out front, I teared up immediately.... It's just still so hard. :( ....Anyway, it was great to see the rest of the family minus Donna and Mike. They had a birthday celebration with Donna's side of the family, so they couldn't come, but it was an enjoyable day nonetheless.

Before having our egg hunt, the kids opened the Easter baskets "Grandma" prepared for them. They were FILLED with goodies! It was so much fun, as always, to see the excitement in their eyes! Braden was in a very down mood today. I don't think he was feeling very well. He was sneezing a lot this morning and when I put him to bed tonight he began coughing like a seal, so I put a humidifier in his room to help him breathe better. Anyway, he did a lot of whining and not much smiling without being prompted. He just wasn't himself. It makes sense now, but earlier, it just seemed annoying not to have my happy go lucky little guy who usually LOVES being around Grandpa and Grandma and his cousins!

Easter Continued...

Mom was having trouble getting her camera to take pictures. She'd hit, and hit and HIT the button on it, but nothing would happen. So Jer was trying to help her and everytime she couldn't get it to work, she'd hand it to Jer and he'd hit it and it would take. This happened 3 or 4 times and she'd get the camera back each time and wouldn't be able to make it take the pics. The more frustrated she got, the more they giggled. It was hilarious!

Jer laughing his guts out!

This pic turned out sideways, but it was Braden finding eggs on our hunt downstairs. The weather was rainy and yucky today so we had to have the egg hunt indoors....what a shocker in the midwest. I think we've had 3 outdoor egg hunts since Ben was born.

Ben is VERY excited about all his findings during the Easter egg hunt.