Easter Sunday

After a really fun day at Nana and Papas, we headed home late and got the kids right to bed. Luckily we set out the easter baskets and eggs for the easter bunny to fill and hide that night. With some advanced planning, we're sure the easter bunny wasn't up too late getting things set out and eggs hidden.

Despite the late hour we got them to bed, Zach was still up at 7am on the dot and had a hard time waiting for his sister to wake up. We finally gave in to his complaining around 8am and woke her up to head downstairs to see what the easter bunny had left.

Zach was delighted with his new set of legos and easter basket full of a book, movie, socks, mp3 player, and lots of candy!



Hailey was all smiles at her new doll stroller (she literally wore her old one out!) and easter basket full of the same things as Zach, all pink and girl-themed of course!



Jeremiah and I didn't want the easter bunny to have all the fun, so we bought the kids a few things too. A hula hoop and packet of $5 McDonald's gift certificates were also a hit. Here are the kids with their hula hoops.


They absolutely loved them! Who would have thought a hula hoop from the dollar store would have been such a hit? They both immediately started hula hooping around - Zach had the right idea and go better and better with each try. As for Hailey, she really tried hard, but did more of a body shake while holding on to the hula hoop. It was really cute, so I got them both to do it together while I took a quick video, so that I could post it for you all to see.



After some pretty heavy hula hooping, the kids finally noticed the easter eggs scattered around the family room. So they grabbed their easter baskets and started gathering up the eggs the easter bunny left them. We left out sports eggs for Zach and eggs with flowers, squiggles, and stripes for Hailey, so they were easy to keep separate.

They ran around the room giggling as they found eggs is random places. Here's Hailey showing me an egg she found by the computer desk.


And here's Zach showing me an egg he found over on the bookshelf.


Zach thought he made quite the haul with his 16 eggs - he remembered from last year that the easter bunny puts candy in the eggs, so he was quick to share this with his sister and began opening up his eggs to discover all the candy.


After finding all 16 eggs, Hailey was more than happy. She got even more excited when she found out from her brother that each egg had candy in it!


Between all the candy and treats from the previous days Easter Party and with what the easter bunny left them, we have candy coming out our ears! But the kids are enjoying it all. We sure had a fun easter and can't wait for the holiday to come around again!

Hope you all had a very HAPPY EASTER!

Easter Party

This year to celebrate Easter, Nana and Papa had a big Easter Party at their house on Saturday. With all the grandkids (and their parents), it was a full house, but a really fun time. Nana had all sorts of activities planned for the kids.

After lunch, we started out the festivities with breaking a pinata. Here are all the kids eagerly awaiting their turn to have a whack at the egg pinata.


It was decided that it would be best to take turns youngest to oldest, to make sure everyone got a turn. Here's Hailey taking her turn - I have to admit that this girls got good aim - she hit the egg time and time again as she swung the bat around.


Here's Zach on his turn. He had that thing spinning and was whacking the egg so hard that I was sure he was going to break it before the last grandchild had a turn. We had to stop him fairly quickly as we saw cracks start to become visible on the outside. Another whack or two and he would have opened it up - a few years of recreation baseball really makes a difference!


As predicted, a few whacks from the oldest grandkid and the egg burst open showering the ground with a whole TON of candy. The kids were all giggling as they raced to pick it all up and put it into their easter basekts.


After the pinata activity, the kids headed out back to find easter eggs. Nana had certain eggs for each child to find, so I was busy trying to help Hailey find her specific eggs and didn't get a chance to get any pictures. After 4 special eggs that were turned into prizes and 14 other eggs filled with candy, they made quite the haul.

Next the kids headed back out front to play the bunny bean bag toss that Uncle Bubby and Afton had made for them. Zach was really great and got the bean bags through the holes in the cardboard almost every time.


Hailey did pretty good too - I would say she made it more than half the time - not bad for a 4 year old!


While the kids were playing with the bean bag toss, Nana was busy getting stuff ready for cupcake decorating. All it took was one call of all the kids and they ran in from outside to decorate their cupcakes. I think there was more eating of the frosting and candy than there was decorating, but each of the kids came away with at least 2 or 3 cupcakes a piece.



Next they made some candy carrots. They filled carrot shaped bags with candy and tied them off to look like carrots. They turned out really cute. After that, all the kids settled down in the family room to watch a movie while us adults rested a little bit. When the kids got restless, Nana pulled out all of the egg coloring supplies and we all helped the kids color and put stickers on hard boiled eggs. I had meant to get pictures of these last few activities, but my hands were busy almost every second, so I didn't get any to post. But let me tell you, the kids had an absolute BLAST doing all the easter activities and playing with their cousins. It sure was a fun day and they are still talking about how much fun they had!

Thanks Nana and Papa for a really fun Easter Party!