Easter!

We had a CRAZY Easter weekend and I took yesterday as a day off to watch chick flicks all day and relax.  :)  It was heavenly. 

We did an egg hunt on the 17th at my mom's house, which helped to remind my kids what to do when they see plastic eggs lying around.

The craziness started Friday.  I spent the entire day baking and cleaning-getting ready for the weekend.  It didn't help that Shane was an invalid so I was a single mom of 4 kids.  Ugh.  Men are such babies.  ;)  

Saturday morning we started out the day by going to Roy City's egg hunt with my sister and her family.  We didn't get any pictures there because it was all over way too fast.  Kaden was overwhelmed and didn't move to get any eggs when the kids rushed in.  He finally got an egg when the hunt was over...and it was empty.  He was really sad about it.  Poor kid.  We're hoping preschool in the fall will help him with his shyness.  Lexi barged in and got a whole bunch of eggs (I helped a little), but then saw that they had candy inside and didn't want to pick up any more-just eat the ones she had.  

After that, we headed to my dad's house for yet another egg hunt with the cousins.  My dad hid plastic eggs as well as the colored hard-boiled eggs and Kaden didn't get the concept that the real eggs didn't have candy and did NOT like giving the eggs back after he'd worked so hard to find them.  So that was a total fail.  I'm going to wait until he's older to include real eggs in our own egg hunt.  Lexi, however, had a ball!  She LOVED finding the eggs!

Kaden, Lexi, and their cousin McKayla.

Ready, set, GO!

Bags full of sugar!

After my dad's house, we went straight to my friend, Hillary's, house for a BBQ and another egg hunt.  This was Kaden's favorite part of the day.  Wanna know why?

Best swingset ever (according to Kaden).  :)  He LOVED it!

We really need to buy a swingset for our kids.  :)

Lexi "the princess" made the boys push her on the swing the whole time.  hahaha

Kaden tried out the monkey bars....or whatever they're called.

Egg hunt!  The hot preggo woman is Hillary (Kim, how did I not get a picture of your preggo belly?) and then there's Kaden, Kassi (Kim's oldest), and Harrison (Hillary's son).

This is Tyler (Kim's youngest....for the next 3 weeks until #3 comes!).

 It was SO much fun!!  After a delicious lunch, we colored eggs.  The kids didn't really get into it, but the adults did!  hahaha  It was really fun catching up with these two.  AND it's the first time in a really long time that I'm the only one NOT pregnant when we get together.  :D  YAY ME!

After that, we headed to Shane's parent's house for dinner and (yes another) egg hunt.  The only nap my poor kids got was in the car going from one place to the next.

We got to see the only other grandchild on Shane's side, Ryley.  She is SO cute!  We hadn't seen her since she was a week old (she's almost 4 months now!) because of RSV-Ari wasn't allowed within 100 yards of her.  Anyway, even though I've had HOW many kids recently, I couldn't believe how much she'd changed.  She went from newborn to baby!  She is darling!

Lexi kept taking the burp cloth and putting it over Ryley like a blanket.  :)  She's a good big sister.

After dinner, it was time for another egg hunt!  This one was hand's down Kaden and Lexi's favorite.  Not only did Grandma and Grandpa Porter spoil them, there was no one else to fight for the eggs!  It was a free for all and they were in HEAVEN!

Mom, it has DORA!!

Lexi wanted NOTHING to do with the bag we had for her to put her eggs in.  She found a much better basket for her eggs.  :)

We got home late Saturday night and Lexi slept in late Sunday (I thought she would since she missed her nap).  But Kaden was still up by 7:30!  And the Easter bunny had come!  (I'm not sure it needed to, though, with how much candy they got on Saturday.)  Shane and I decided that next year the Easter bunny is only going to bring summer toys (bubbles, jump ropes, sidewalk chalk, etc.) since they really don't need THAT much candy.

Baskets!

Kaden quickly found his (the only one with a new Thomas the Train!).

He didn't even glance at the candy, just wanted to play with Thomas all morning.  This one goes on it's own (without him having to push it) and says little phrases the whole time.  He loves it more than I thought he would.  :D

Ari got some fun new toys!  She loves them!

Lexi got her very first Barbie!  (Well, it's a Belle Barbie, but still.)  We were at our friend's house a couple of weeks ago and had to pry their Barbie out of Lexi's hands, so I knew she would love it.  :)

She has carried it EVERYWHERE since Sunday and makes sure she sleeps with it, too.

The kids in their Easter clothes!  Lexi loved her "princess dress."

Ari in her very first Easter dress!!  :D  I LOVE matching my girls!

We have 1:00 church, so I spent the morning getting ready for our Easter dinner.  I invited my grandparent's over because I found out they had no one to eat with and were going to have MRE's.  Uh, yeah.  Not on my watch!  We had roasted garlic and onion chicken with special Easter rolls, deviled eggs (of course), and carrots.  I was going to do steamed asparagus, but somehow all of my asparagus vanished so I had to improvise with the carrots.

My special Easter rolls.  :)

I got the idea for the rolls from a blog, but I can't find the link anywhere!  I will keep looking and post it when I find it.  The rolls represent the tomb and are empty because Jesus has risen and is not here.  It was a great little Easter lesson and Kaden loved hearing about it.  If you want to know how to make them (it's easy), let me know and I'll do another post on it sometime.  :)

I hope everyone had a great Easter!!