Easter at Aunt Shirley's House

Sweet little moments, frozen in time...

...like Uncle Bill wearing Caroline's Easter bonnet, and Caroline thinking he was the funniest thing ever...
...an Easter egg hunt in my Aunt Shirley's backyard...

...Evan showing his Easter basket to Aunt Shirley...

...Henry getting undivided attention from two of his favorite people...

...a handsome picture of Grandpa and Grandson...

...Evan playing hackey sack with his Grandma...

...a dessert accomplishment (I made homemade strawberry shortcake)...

...Grandma and Henry's Kings in the Corner tournament...

...Caroline and Grandpa creating beautiful coloring masterpieces...

I have many happy memories of Easter 2010. We are a blessed family!

Happy Easter!

Guess which kids woke up at the crack of dawn...
to see if the Easter Bunny had visited...

looking all over the house to look for their Easter baskets?

I know that 4 kids at our house did! ;)

Getting Ready for Easter

Tonight we dyed lots of eggs.
Evan did it mostly by himself, just the way he likes it. :)

Henry wrote special messages on his eggs...

like "This is an egg." and...

"I rock." You've got to love 4th grade humor.

Here's Evan sharing his thoughts on the evening...

And here's Caroline and Evan right after they set out their baskets and a snack for the Easter Bunny...

The Easter bunny did, in fact, visit our house tonight, leaving this...

and this!
Happy Easter, everybody!

I just had to share this...

It was a perfect day!

We went to the arboretum with some good friends,
enjoying an absolutely beautiful spring day together.

Oh, the feel of cool water between your toes on a warm day!

Henry was so sweet and protective of his little brother, staying with him the whole time they were in this water area.

Here's sweet Caroline, soaking in the sun!

This is my dear friend, April (who I've known since 8th grade), and her sweet son, Trevor.

The kids love this spider web climbing area,

where Evan could climb by himself this year. So BIG!

They did a lot of rock climbing. Henry and Seth are at the top of this ledge, and Caroline's taking a rest at the bottom.

Henry and April's other son, Luke, were climbing everything in sight.

Seth got in on the action too!

Caroline could often be found doting on Trevor. :)

There were so many beautiful spring colors to enjoy! Spring is Caroline's favorite season. (Mine too!)

Evan was feeling like a very big boy today. Several times, my three year old told me that he was actually 4. :)
It got pretty warm, so the kids were thankful for a cool spot.

Good friends, fun times, beautiful day, spring in the arboretum...

It was a perfect day!

Please do not call DCFS...

I promise you, I do not cage my children. :)

We just bought our dog's cage today, and Caroline and Evan have been trying it out for us. It must be quite comfortable because they've been playing puppies there for quite a while (with the door unlatched).

It is honestly ridiculous how excited we are about getting our dog. How in the world are we going to wait 2 more months?

MUST PLAY WITH...

EVERY SINGLE TOY THAT'S BEEN COOPED UP IN THE GARAGE ALL WINTER...
...and make sure my bath is very well-deserved...

...on this first day of 70+ degree weather this year. YEA! :)

Two of my dwarves would be named...

There are two things that you should know about Evan before you read this short story:

1. His favorite show right now is Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. (He thinks that the dwarves are hi-LAR-ious.)

2. For whatever reason, Evan was a little stinky last night when he was sitting on the couch next to Henry. We are theorizing that it had something to do with a rather large broccoli intake the night before.

And now, on with the story.

We were watching (you guessed it!) Snow White, and Seth found something that the dwarves did particularly funny. He was laughing so hard that I had to stop watching the movie and just enjoy watching him. (When something really tickles Seth's funny bone, it's hard not to laugh at him laughing!) So I said to Seth, "Hey buddy, cheer up, will you?!" And then, in honor of the movie we were watching, I said, "If you were a dwarf, we might have to call you 'Grumpy'!"

Without skipping a beat, Henry said, "And I would have to call Evan 'Gassy'!"

Hee-hee!