Happy Easter!

"For God so loved YOU that He gave His only begotten Son for YOU that if YOU believe, YOU shall not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16

We had a wonderful Easter as a family and hope you enjoyed yours, too. More on the actual day to come. For now, enjoy these pictures!

Eggcelent painting!

Here are some pictures from painting our Easter eggs Saturday night:

This was Ryan's first year in participating. He was NOT happy that he was not allowed to eat the eggs, drink the water, or dump everything everywhere. We eventually put him down and allowed him to throw his fit. Ah, the terrible twos that are about to begin!

He did try one egg (not biting it, thank God) and he did throw an egg or two that smashed when we wouldn't allow him to dump the vinegar colored water everywhere. Silly Schnook!

Our colors didn't turn out very well this year. In fact, they gave us two blues rather than a purple and a blue. They were exactly the same color. But, I guess that's what you can expect for free at CVS.

The boys still had fun anyway. Joshua wore an old shirt of Daddy's over his nice shirt. :)

They colored a couple with white crayons, making a cross and writing their names, but for the most part, they just dipped them in the colors.

Caleb made a couple in a rainbow pattern, too (dipping them in all the colors).

I hard-boiled three dozen and wouldn't have needed a full dozen for Ryan yet (although I helped with some of his). They still went quickly, though!

Here I am trying to help Ryan dab on some color with a q-tip instead of smashing them. You can tell by his face that he was NOT interested.

We still had fun, though.

I understand his desire to move the bowl closer to him, but I still remember Caleb drinking the water before we caught him. YUCK! So, we were more on alert this time.

The older boys LOVED painting! We all had egg dye all over our hands.

Here's my little man celebrating the joys of Easter with us!

And, of course, Daddy was there to help. He pretended to drink the water to get us all to say "GROSS!"

And he agreed to pose for a picture or two for me.

Notice Ryan has went to semi-cool (sucking his thumb) from the above picture to all out scream below. My little buddy being upset would have upset us more in the past, but we wanted the older boys to still enjoy their time, and we knew that Ryan would enjoy bath time and get to bed soon enough. He was getting tired from our full day of play.

The older kids didn't miss a beat!

Caleb kept saying "another one! another one! I need more eggs!"

Eventually they were all colored and back in their containers.

I tried to get a picture with the older boys and their creations before cleaning up the mess.

Daddy bathed them while I got rid of the evidence and put our house back together. Then I helped dry them and get their jammies on, etc.

And with a nice bath, warm PJs and some cuddle time as we rocked and read stories, Ryan was once again happy and forgot about his dismay in our craft time. Next year, buddy, you'll be able to handle more of the painting! You can see that no children were harmed in these events. :)

Easter 'Sad'urday!

Spring into Sunshine

This past weekend gave us just a little taste of what Spring will feel like. On "Good Friday" night, Shawn and I went on a date. We used the rest of our gift card to Applebee's that we've had for over two years now. Then we went to Pottery Barn (just for fun to look around) and Best Buy (a store for me and a store for him). Then we went home, but we had enjoyed our time out. We also went to Universal the following afternoon and sat in the hot tub while the kids played in the kidmazium (I had went to my morning exercise class before that, but the kids had stayed home with Daddy). We love spending time with our kids, but we also enjoy spending time just the two of us!

Saturday afternoon, the weather was lovely! I took the older boys to the playground out back while Ryan was napping. They both rode their bikes over and around some at the school before playing on the playground equipment. When we got home, we let them play outside some more in the garage and on the driveway with their brother. Ryan enjoyed the cozy coupe car for the first time! Oh, how he reminds me of Joshua at this age!

The older boys posed for a silly picture above! They crack me up!

We played a ton of basketball as a family, too. We as parents also did plenty of running down the street after the ball when the kids would miss a rebound or drop the ball. It felt SO good to be outside!

Caleb asked to take some pictures with the camera. :)

That evening we went to the Burger King play ground to end our family time together. It was a random spur-of-the-moment-let's-keep-playing decision by Daddy. We had a fun afternoon together!

That evening we painted the Easter eggs I had hard-boiled the day before (which I will post about separately). Then, after baths and before tucking the boys in bed, we watched the Charlie Brown "Easter Beagle" movie and cuddled. It was a fun weekend!

SPRING into a Snow Day

The week before Easter, it was Caleb's turn to take snack to preschool. Since I haven't done anything "fun" or creative yet for his class, I decided we should look for something Easter themed.

I found a "recipe" (if you want to call it that - or maybe a better word is "directions") for this goldfish carrot on Pinterest. I purchased the smallest size disposable cake decorator bags I could find (and then still cut the ends off to get rid of the logo. We filled them with goldfish and then tied them off with twisty ties (using mostly green, but I ran out in the end for Caleb's whole class). While Joshua loves real carrots, Caleb isn't a big fan. But he LOVES goldfish! So, this was a fun way to add some 'theme' to snack time.

We also baked Easter cookies - bunnies and chicks - to take along with the goldfish carrots. While they aren't real healthy, it was the theme I was going for.

The day we baked them, though, was Monday, March 25, and it actually SNOWED! The forecast began calling for 6-10 inches, but eventually we got maybe an inch or two (which was better than the last time the forecast called for 5-8 inches and we got nothing but rain!). While Joshua had off school for the "rain" forecast, he still had snow this Monday morning. And while people complained, there was really no need for a delay or a cancellation. I walked the Bean to school and it was pretty much just slush on the sidewalks and less on the roads since it was a warmer day than usual for getting snow.

Joshua wore his snow boots to school and took his shoes along. Only, he took his left shoe and Caleb's left shoe (they do have one pair of sneakers that are identical). I didn't notice and neither did he until he got to school. His teacher told me that she offered to call me to bring a new pair, but he said it didn't bother him too much and since they didn't have gym that day, she didn't figure it mattered for the couple hours he was there. He laughed about it when he got home, and we put Caleb's away in Caleb's side of their shoe cubby and Joshua's away on Joshua's side.

After lunch, I laid Ryan down for his nap and went outside with the older boys to play in the snow. They are able to get their own snow pants and boots on now, so it doesn't feel like as much work as it once did. They made a snow castle and tossed snowballs and had a blast! It wasn't terribly freezing, so it was fun to be outside. Joshua was able to help roll a snowman, which impressed me.

Unfortunately, when we went to add eyes, a scarf, a hat and arms, etc, our snowman fell apart. We tried three different times and had the same sad ending to all three snowmen. We either pushed too hard with the stuff or the snow was too wet and melting to stay upright. Oh, well. I think they still had fun!

We stayed outside well over an hour and then came in for some hot chocolate. Notice the Lightning McQueen cups (thanks, Mamaw & Papaw!). Caleb, who LOVES marshmallows, did not like seeing them floating in his drink. ???

Joshua, on the other hand, dove right in! He got a chocolate mustache pretty quick, and Caleb laughed and said he really did look like Mario!

And while I'm MORE than ready for spring, it was a fun day to enjoy one last coating of snow for this year and season. Now we're ready for flowers and sunshine and time outside.

Our Little Funny Bunny

The other night as we brought in groceries, Ryan took my cucumber off the counter and took a big bite out of the top (not washed, not peeled). He said "YUM!" and then showed Shawn, saying "Look at my banana!" Both acts cracked us up. Obviously, this wasn't a banana! And he's never tried to bite a whole cucumber before. SO silly! Our little Schnook keeps us laughing!