We Want Eggs!

We had been looking forward to Saturday, April 16, for awhile and praying that the weather would hold out for the kids' Easter egg hunt. This year we went to the Grace Church helicopter drop once again with our friends Chris & Lisa and their daughter Isabella. The egg hunt was scheduled to start at 9 am, so we met earlier to make sure we had a game plan. It was only in the low 30s that morning and they were calling for severe thunder storms, which hadn't started yet. We weren't sure what to expect as far as the egg hunt, but I had called the church, and the secretary informed me the event happened rain or shine (with most of the activities being indoors).

In the parking lot, we told the kids to 'hold hands' and Isabella & Joshua wanted to hold each others' rather than their adult parents'. Adorable! You can see Shawn & Chris in the background of the above picture making sure they were okay.

We saw that the field was already covered with eggs, and they informed us that they were still doing the helicopter drop for this group. The kids were excited even though we as adults were frozen! They told us we could wait inside until it was time for the helicopter to come. Shawn & Chris ran for coffee (and little Caleb followed Daddy) and Lisa & I stayed with the older kiddos.

Just before 9 am, they told us we could go line up outside. Before leaving the building, we took a couple pictures of the kids holding hands, excited for the helicopter to "drop those eggs!" I LOVE their cheesy expressions in the picture to the right.

Since the kids wanted to stick together, we decided to venture over to the 3-5 year old section as a group. Caleb will be three this summer anyway.

Lisa took a few close-up pictures of the kiddos excited faces.

 The emcee started telling jokes to the kids, most of which were over their heads. One was "which day of the week does the egg like least?" The answer? Fry-day. "Why do we paint Easter eggs?" It's easier than wallpapering them. Soon enough, it was time to start chanting for the helicopter. This year, they shouted "WE WANT EGGS! WE WANT EGGS!" Our kids were all prepared to say "drop those eggs" like last year, but this worked, too.

 

I had my zippy and a heavy coat on, Shawn had only grabbed his zippy, the kids had warm coats but no hats or gloves on, and we were all chilly. But, it was the question of when the rain would start. You can see in these pictures with the helicopter that the skies were BLACK.

 

I was thankful the kids still got to do the egg hunt. Here's a picture of Joshua that Lisa took since the older kids took off with the rest of the group and I stayed behind with Caleb Luke, who only got a few broken eggs.

He seemed chilly!

Soon all the eggs were found, and we rushed back inside. Once there, I grabbed our family's coats and Chris got his family's and we left to go hang them up. Shawn & Lisa and Lisa's parents (who came to see Isabella) took the kids to get little balloon hats while they waited for us. I have NO idea what they were supposed to be, but the kids enjoyed them.

Then Isabella wanted her face painted, so we waited for her. My boys wanted neither paint nor tattoos but were happy just to try and bonk each other with their balloon ends.

As we waited for Isabella to be transformed into a bunny (or kitty, I'm not sure which now that I'm looking at her), we ran into the Easter bunny. Caleb was too nervous to go meet him, but Joshua went right up to say hello and we snapped a quick picture. Isabella got in line to get her picture taken with the Easter bunny as a pose. We knew our boys were too anxious to get to the activities, so we didn't make them. Her picture did turn out cute, though.

In the meantime, we headed to the activities. There weren't as many this year. That said, we didn't make it to even half of them last year, so that was just fine. It did mean that there were longer lines for the few that were available, though. The first one was to throw a soft bunny through a hoop. The boys did great and got to pick a prize (which wasn't just candy - they had things like bracelets, crosses that were little games, little bouncy balls, etc). Next we headed to fish a ducky out of the pond for a prize, which you can see in the picture below.

Joshua begged Daddy to go to the bounce houses at this point, so Shawn agreed to take him while Caleb & I stayed behind to play more games since Isabella had caught up to us at this point. The next game we did was the bean bag toss. Caleb made it through the hole on his first shot!

Caleb & Isabella decided to join the bouncing fun, only they weren't tall enough to be in the one that Joshua was in. Joshua was right on the line of 'eggs' so he could go on either one - the big kid one or the little kid one. He had been doing the bigger one (with a shorter line) so Caleb & Izzy headed to the little one and went through. Then Joshua joined them, and we saw his little buddy Kyler there from his Sunday School class. Kyler's Grandma had brought him. Here are my two boys going through the smaller of the two bounce houses, which was still fairly big.

Since the lines were long for the bouncy areas and we didn't have long until the magic show, we decided to head back to the games. Joshua went back to the bigger bouncy area that wasn't as full. In the game below, the kids had to toss a balloon through the hoola hoop.

Then they went to this 'ski ball' and once again, Caleb got his in on the first try, which amazed me.

They told us it was time for the magic show, so we went and got the kids seats. The guy was very fun to watch, and the kids LOVED it! Joshua has told us that he's going to pull a bunny out of his box ever since.

That was the end of our morning there. We read in the newspaper that the 9 am group was the only group that got to experience the helicopter this year. It had started to rain, and they called off the 11 am and 1 pm egg hunts. I am thankful that our boys got to see and experience it, even though it was chillly. Hopefully next year will be warm and sunny! We still had a fun time with our friends. And Caleb will still chant on occasion "We want eggs!" in his soft little voice. :) :) :)