Friday, April 24, 2015

Easter 2015

I'm pretty sure that I've written on here before that Easter was one of those holidays that we didn't really pay much attention to until we had kids. As you know if you been following this blog for any length of time, we are certainly a family that loves and believes in Jesus. However, we don't celebrate Easter as a religious holiday as we celebrate Jesus's death, burial, and resurrection each and every Lord's Day. Anyway, now that we have kids, Easter has become kind of a big deal. It seems to go on for over a week, and we actually find ourselves turning down activities so that we don't get too overwhelmed with endless Easter themed things to do!

Our first Easter activity this year was on Saturday, March 28th . . . over a week before Easter! Tia and Sadie invited us to join them for an egg hunt in the park by their house. Our big kids were excited for the first hunt of the year!

Bren was so funny in that he would only pick up blue eggs. He ran by so many trying to find the blue ones :-).

My sweet bigs . . .

My kids had never "met" the Easter Bunny . . . it's just not something that I've ever really wanted to do. Honestly, I think he's pretty creepy! However, there were two bunnies (a male and a female) at this event, so my kids finally got to experience meeting the bunny. As you can see, Brianna didn't share my "he's creepy" sentiment :-).

It did take a little convincing to get Brenson to go up to him, but he finally agreed.

Of course, we had to get a family photo with the bunny. The babies are 7 1/2 weeks old here. They were unimpressed :-).

We were also able to play in a bounce house that was set up, and decorate the side walk with chalk at this event. Miss Sadie loved the chalk :-).

Brianna and Sadie playing chalk:

The following Saturday (April 4th), we went to my sister's house for the day. This was the first time that we had the babies away from home alllll day long, and it you wouldn't believe the amount of stuff we took over there! It was ridiculous, ha! This wasn't actually any type of Easter celebration (it was a birthday party for Chloe Jo), but I dressed the girls in these cute bunny outfits that we received as hand-me-downs from Caroline and Julia. Since they were dressed all festive, pictures were in order!

Brooke, Brecklyn



It seems impossible to get a good one of both babies at the same time. The struggle is real!


My solution? Make a collage of all the photos!

Since we were there all day, the babies had to nap several times. We set up our pack-n-play in my sister's room, but Brecklyn wasn't having it. We are learning very quickly that she doesn't like to sleep when we're away from home. During one of her catnaps, she was sleeping on the couch while Brooke was crying. We looked over at her to find her like this:
Ha! I guess sister's noise was bothering her :-).

That evening, Chris and I escaped for a few hours to run errands and grab dinner together. It was SO nice to be out without the children! We picked up these sunglasses for Bren, and he thinks they're great! I think he wears them well :-).

The next morning (actual Easter, April 5th), we got up extra early to do Easter baskets and take photos. It already takes us close to three hours to get everyone up, fed, and ready to go to church, so there was a lot of effort that went into adding in extra activities before church. I absolutely loved setting out FOUR baskets for our FOUR precious blessings. 

Baskets for Brianna, Brenson, Brooke, and Brecklyn:

Before letting them dig into their Easter baskets, we took photos of the kiddos. Brianna is quickly outgrowing our rocking chair where we traditionally take our Easter pics!

My pretty girl . . . so big!

Sometimes, it's difficult to get Bren to relax for photos. This was one of those mornings!


I love his handsome little face!

Miss Brecklyn on her first Easter. Sitting in this chair was a major problem for her because she had on satin bloomers under her dress, so she kept sliding right off the chair, ha!

For whatever reason, the satin bloomers were less of a problem for Miss Brooke.

We tried and tried, but this was the best photo I could get of all four kiddos. Love my little crew!

The girls! The babies were tired and over photos at this point.

My handsome men!

After photos, we let the big kids go through their Easter baskets. They were very excited, of course!

I love Brianna's expression in this photo! She is so easy to please and always thrilled about gifts.


Bren did not want to stop exploring his loot to take photos. So, this is the face I got, ha!

I found some toys on deep clearance this year, so they each got one "bigger" thing.

More tracks for Bren . . . he seriously loves these things!

The babies weren't interested in their baskets (they each got a book, a coin bank, and a small doll) because they were interested in SLEEP! Brecklyn was, once again, covering her face as not to be disturbed. 

Sweet Brooke fell right to sleep in the swing.

Before leaving for church, I set up the camera on my tripod and used the timer to take a family photo. I loved how we all coordinated and wanted to preserve it!

Our first Easter as a family of six:

Neither photo is too great, but I'm glad I have them.

In effort to keep things real, I want to talk about our morning at church for a minute. To put it bluntly, it was a rough one! Probably the roughest one we've had since the babies were born. I think we really overdid it with them the day before by having them away from home all day long. Because of this, they were both extra fussy and needy all morning long. They took turns crying and fighting sleep and wanting to nurse, and I literally sat in the main assembly for one verse of one song. That was it! It was terribly frustrating! As we were leaving, BOTH of the big kids were being naughty and disobeying. Brenson actually threw a tantrum in the foyer because we told him to go potty before we left. Then, both babies cried and cried once we got in the van. I was frustrated and tired, so I just cried right along with them. The situation probably wasn't cry-worthy, but everything is worse through the lens of fatigue. 

We have a tradition of having Easter lunch with our friends, Ross and Tia, but I wasn't sure if we should forge ahead with our plans of going to their house for lunch, or if we should just throw in the towel and head home. However, after a good cry I felt better, and we decided to go on to lunch.

Here we are trying to get a better family photo before lunch. As you can see, the babies weren't having it. Maybe next year will be better?

Take two . . . not better. We gave up after this try.

Soon after arriving at Ross & Tia's, I nursed both babies and was able to eat lunch with everyone. They had invited her parents to join us for lunch, and Russ, Lisa, Chloe Jo, and my parents were all there, as well. After lunch and clean-up, we got all set up for a small egg hunt for Brianna, Brenson, Chloe Jo, and Sadie. I missed the actual egg hunt as I was nursing babies and getting them down for their naps. I was super sad about this, but I also understand that this is the season we are in right now and I certainly didn't expect them to wait on me to get done with the babies.

Chris took the camera outside and snapped a few pics for me. I wish he would have taken pics of all the kids, but I am thankful to have the few he took since I didn't get to see it in person!


Brenson decided not to be so picky about egg color this time :-).


All of the children ended up with a basket overflowing with eggs. We always go a bit overboard!



After everyone came back inside, the children spent some time looking through their eggs (we do very little candy in the eggs). Chris snapped this photo of me. Can you tell that this day had worn me OUT?!?

I think this photo of Brianna is pretty sweet. She had gotten some silly putty in one of her eggs, and she was trying to figure out how it works.

Brooke was asleep in my arms, but Brecklyn preferred to sleep in the swing (just like at home!) Sweet baby girl was worn out from all the activity of the weekend.

Lisa had made cute Easter-y cupcakes as one of our many dessert choices. Bren really wanted {another} cupcake after exerting so much energy during the egg hunt. Daddy told him no, and this is the face he got. Ha! Sweet little pout face.

We headed home for some rest and down-time fairly quickly after the egg hunt. We all needed it! I hate that I'll always remember our first Easter as a family of six as being rough and exhausting, but I'm hoping things will get easier as the babies get older! *cross fingers*



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