Because as you all can tell by now, I just cannot help myself!!!

Good Friday Easter Egg Hunt

Antony and Echo

Candy and her cupcake bag

Snoopy

A strange glow

I love Snoopy… two pics, slightly different facial expression

I am not sure how to categorize that expression

Kitty in a basket

This is the face she made when we ran out of eggs to dye!!!

In matching shirts, according to age… thank you Gammie!

Dressing pretty to see Grandma and Grandpa Mike

Precious

They were taking turns playing babies and mommies

Echo’s first time in a pool

Grandpa Mike and Trinity

I love this picture of Ken!

Grandma and Emanuel

With Gavin

Gavin

Daddy and his girls

Practicing our floating

Hot tub!

JUMPING IN!!!

Bubbles

My family

Playing UNO with Grandpa Mike

With most of their grandkids

Joe and Faithe

Easter at the Johnson’s

Gabriella

My boys

March 30-31

This was a rather busy weekend for our family… first off… HAPPY EASTER everyone! And in the same breath – Happy Birthday Uncle James! The 30th was my brother’s birthday… so of course yours truly had to get in a call to him and his wife Holly that night… but first… the day of the 30th…

Dressed in their Easter gifts from Gammie

With Nana and Baba settled in for the morning it was finally time to do the yearly dying of the eggs. This year was amazingly… brief. But the results were colourful and pretty.

Getting at it

So pretty on our Easter table

Even Echo got in on the dying… once we took all her clothes off of course!

Busy baby

Ken and Emanuel had some special Daddy/Son time playing PS3.

Gaming together

The evening was the main source of excitement – Grandma and Grandpa Mike were in town for an over nighter on their way to Route 66 and 3 weeks of travels.

Grandma!

So there were presents to check out… And the pool to swim in (they really DO need those lessons this summer!)…

Thank you Tammy and family for the belated Christmas present!

Pool time

Venturing out

With Mommy… in need of a new suit I think

And then back to the room for snacks…

Noms

We were there well past 10… our 3rd late night of the week. Ouch!

In their dresses with their new teddies… one is white, the other off white

Boys and their toys… mini Fat Sheep

I have a series of her in the mirror… they will be in an overflow entry!

Sunday the 31st was Easter Sunday. Another jam packed day of course. First though, with all that tulle and matching dresses and the boys all in plaid it was time for PICTURES!!!

Pretty Baby

All my babies in a row

Just my girls

With the traditional Easter Hats

And then, back to Grandma and Grandpa Mike’s hotel room for some more cuddle time while we watched tv, visited and played around until 11 am and check out.

All in their Easter duds

Playing with Grandpa Mike’s watch

After check out we went to the nearby McDonalds for lunch. And then it was time to say good bye and see them off on their first leg of their journey – Mall of America.

At McDonalds

Yum!

Two tables of course

Me and my Mommy

We returned home in time for the Johnson family festivities… so pictures with the cousin first…

Proud grandparents

Then baskets and a wardrobe change for Echo (and eventually Trinity)! The Easter Bunny was generous this year.

Bunny related chaos

Outfit #2

With lots to eat there was plenty of room around the table.

DINNER

And lots of time to play.

Playing in the 3 seasons porch

Our first Easter in Minnesota was a BUSY weekend..,. but an amazing one all the same!

…and best of all we were all together

For all of our Easter resources please refer to the blog entry titled “Easter Resources“.

March 24-25

March 24th (Sunday) marked day FOUR of our visiting and visitors… talk about an AMAZING long weekend feel to our days! Thursday was a trip out to use some time sensitive coupons and then heading to the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts with Shandai and Emily… Friday we had Steven over for the night for games and visiting… then Saturday was an afternoon (for JUST ME!) at Bree’s with my newest love of my life LILY! That brings me to Sunday and.. the NOVAKS!! ALL OF THEM! (that’s right Andy as well!)

Lily Irene who apparently takes binkies best from yours truly!

Our morning was spent with some cleaning and laundry and all that fun stuff and then early on in the afternoon we grew by 6 and had a grand total of NINE kids running around. Echo is especially fond of her Anthony who she has dubbed NeeNee… And was more than willing to babble to him until he was desperate to get her to just STOP for a minute!

With her NeeNee

We loaded up not only Minecraft but the PS3 and the adults settled in to visit.

Busy gamers

For dinner we had walking tacos… where you take mini bags of Doritos (50 for around 10.00 at Sam’s Club!!) and put your taco mix in there after breaking up your chips… add fork and eat! The amount of spillage was nil and everyone was soooo full!!!

Supper chaos lovely and controlled

We are already talking about planning a gaming night with NO electronics over at their house in April… as it stands right now we have a First Communion to see (Andrew and Anthony’s joint) on Thursday evening and then Friday is the egg hunt with them. I am going to be so spoiled with all my time with Darcy and the boys. Andy even hopes to be at both events in some capacity, though he does have to work both days.

The menfolk

Trinity and Aidan on iTouches

Monday marked the start of the end of our time without Nana and Baba. So it was time to go into overdrive on the Easter work. I really doubt  that we will finish the week or start the next with much going on school wise once Nana and Baba return home. I am already thinking on the penguins which are our next major topic before I turn us back to looking at the United States. I have not decided how we will deal with the general topic… but I really want to cover lots!

We made our Resurrection Eggs lapbook which corresponds terrifically with our book Lily’s Easter Party by Crystal Bowman. We did change two of the touch items out of necessity but it was fun to do together!

Trinity with our eggs

Creativity has been just oozing out all over the place here lately… today it was Emanuel’s turn with his fish themed picture.

A special picture

We also made our hand lilies… we didn’t have yellow pipecleaners so had to use bright orange and instead of straws went with green pipecleaners! We have continued with our song and it is almost ready to record!

Lilies on the table

We discussed the history of Easter traditions… specifically two questions!

1. Why is there an Easter Bunny?
2. Why do we decorate eggs?

We of course set Ken on the hunt for answers and he got us a video

That sadly went rather over their heads… but I found two sites with answers… The Bunny issue HERE and the Egg issue HERE.

And so the tone of our week is set! With Nana and Baba’s return imminent I am just hoping for some work done, some visiting and then the weekend going smoothly… but more about that later!

Andrew scaring Echo while Anthony and she are playing