Monday, April 17, 2017

Easter 2017 Part 1

As has become our tradition, we kicked off our Easter festivities with a visit to Meme and Papa's house this year the weekend before Easter day. We arrived at their house around 10am and spent the whole day there with them doing fun Easter activities, playing outside, and eating lunch.

We were hoping our cousins would be there, too, but it didn't work out with their schedule this time. So, it was just our crew for the annual Easter egg hunt.

My littles were ready to hunt those eggs!
Brooke, Brenson, Brianna, Brecklyn

Papa and Daddy hid the eggs for us, and they were sure to hide a few in a little more challenging spaces for Brianna and Brenson. Of course, it was no surprise to me to look up and see my child climbing a tree to get to an egg!

The little girls had a blast with the egg hunting! They didn't remember this activity from last year, but we talked to them about what they were going to do and they had no problems catching right on!

Brecklyn

Brooke

Brooke

Brooke

Brianna and Brenson were as spunky as ever, even though there were tons of eggs and only four kids. It was cute to watch, though!


I love how Brianna's hair is just all over the place in these photos!

My cute Brenson

My spunky Brianna

Brecklyn

Brecklyn

She kept showing off her eggs to me!

Brecklyn, Brianna, Brenson, and Brooke with their loot.

Meme and Papa have had a tire swing behind their house for several years now. It's one of the things our kids look forward to playing on when visiting their house. This year, I had gone down to Grandma's house to pick her up and bring her back to Meme and Papa's house to spend the day with us. As we were pulling up to Meme and Papa's house, Brianna was enjoying the tire swing. Just as I put the car in park, the tire flew out from under her and and went flying through the air! Thankfully, Chris was standing right there and caught Brianna before they fell (she was hanging onto that rope for dear life), but it was a somewhat scary moment. Of course, as soon as we saw she was okay, we cracked up laughing!

Brianna and Brooke before the tire flew off!

Brecklyn and Brianna

Meme helping the girls swing

In addition to the tire swing, Papa also recently built a swing set for the kids . . . and, ahem, adults :-).

Chris and Grandma

After the tire swing incident, Papa decided to hang a new tire swing (with a different kind of mount) from a tree on the side of the house. He brought out his tractor to help him, and Brenson was fascinated! Bren loves ALL things tractor (and big trucks and machinery). 

While the boys were hanging the new tire swing, Meme had a fire going in the fire pit for roasting s'mores. Brecklyn and Brooke were as interested in the fire as Bren was in the tractor!

Daddy was really the one tending to the fire :-).
 

Bren was ecstatic when Papa offered him a ride on the tractor. They rode all around the land, and I think Brenson would have been happy to just ride all afternoon.

Initially, Brianna was also riding on the tractor. However, she got tired (and a little scared) of that really quickly as she wasn't sitting very securely on it. Daddy wasn't far from where she got off the tractor, so he walked her back to the house. They were so cute walking hand-in-hand!

We had a really great day enjoying not only an egg hunt, but just playing on the land, as well. Our kids love to be outside running and playing, and it warms Chris's heart to see them enjoying the same land he did as a child. 

I know I've mentioned this on here before, but one of my very favorite Easter traditions we do each year is coloring eggs. I have always loved this activity, and I especially love sharing it with my kids! This year, however, time got away from me and we didn't end up doing our traditional egg dying. I had even purchased the stuff to do it, we just never got to it. While a big part of me was pretty upset about this, I decided a long time ago that I would rather skip something than stress everyone out trying to fit it in our schedule somewhere. 

However, we had a play date in early April with our LeFlore friends where we did do some egg coloring. It wasn't our traditional way of doing things, but the kids enjoyed it anyhow. I was sad that Brianna missed out on it (she was in school), but I have to remind myself that sometimes we just can't do everything and that's okay! 

Kendall brought all the supplies for the coloring, and I supplied the eggs. With this method of egg coloring, we put the dye into a bag with the egg and used our hands to swish it around. 

Bren chose blue for his color.


Brooke liked pink.



Brecklyn decided to choose yellow since Brooke had taken her color :-).


Jack liked teal/green for his egg. 


The great thing about this method is that there was minimal mess!


It really only took one adult to head up this activity, so while Kendall helped the kids with the egg coloring, I took pictures and enjoyed sweet little Annie.

The eggs looked really strange at first, and we didn't know if they'd turn out nice or not. However, after they were able to dry a bit, they did end up being really pretty. As you can see, the colors were bright and the finish was very shiny. We ate a few of them, but I displayed this pretty bowl in my kitchen for over a week.

No comments: