Easter goodness

First off, to all of my lovely friends out there who read this blog- I want to tell you about another lovely friend of mine that has recently jumped back onto the blogging bandwagon. I will just say this- READ her blog. You will love her, you will be inspired by her, you will want to comment on any one of her posts and say whatever you feel because she is such an amazing lady. She has beautiful stories and thoughts to share, and you will not regret stepping into her world for a few minutes each week.

EASTER WEEKEND. It was good. Really good.

FRIDAY: made Easter-y treats for the kids to enjoy. I'd be lying if I said that Talmage was great at helping me make things in the kitchen, that he keeps on his apron and stirs the batter. Because, actually, I hate cooking anything with him around. I've tried to involve him and he's just not interested or he's overly enthusiastic and the batter or whatnot ends up all over the floor. So, I waited till naptime and baked my little heart out. :]

fuzzy chick cupcakes. these were so yummy especially with the homemade almond buttercream frosting. YUM.

bird's egg nests. these look prettier than they taste, but maybe I just don't have an affinity for white chocolate.

planted jellybeans (but only the nasty flavored ones) into the ground. and guess what? the magic worked and lollipops sprung up the next day! ha.

That night we dyed eggs with koolaid. I love how vivid and texturized the colors came out- we'll definitely be doing it this way for the years to come.  I printed out some stickers from vinyl for designs- not sure it would work but they turned out pretty neat looking. T liked the part where we pulled out the egg from the cup and it was suddenly a different color :D

SATURDAY: ward egg hunt and brunch. Our ward has a MILLION kids, so it was pretty crazy. I went by myself because J works Saturdays, so that was a challenge but it worked out. C just sat in the stroller and I chased followed T around, paranoid of losing him in the crowd. The actually egg hunt portion lasted all of 2 minutes (the one for kids 3 and under) and I think T found one egg. ha. He just doesn't get the whole "grab eggs before the other kids" thing. I love him for that. I think he found two and came over to me & Charlotte, sulking. He said to me "There's no eggs no more." and then C gave him her one egg that she had been holding the whole time. hehe. I kinda felt bad for him though, because I had built up all the anticipation of finding eggs, and he patiently waited the whole hour of brunch and relay games for the egg hunt to begin. So what did I do? I waited for J to get off work and we hid a BOATload of eggs around the house and outside for them to find and hoard. hehe.

at the ward picnic:

later that night, after the kiddos were fast asleep, I laid out their Easter baskets full of goodies and got all excited for them to wake up. Then teething happened. C gets so many teeth so fast, and right now she's cutting some back teeth on top. I feel terrible for her but I also need my sleep. I need it to function the next day so that I can enjoy Easter day with my family!and so I can teach my Primary class without pulling out my hair and telling all their moms how they acted in class. But, I was up at 3:30 am for the day and that was the start to my Easter morning. At first I hated it, but then it wasn't so bad because we watched Baby Einstein and snuggled :]

SUNDAY: definitely the best part. Dressed up the kids and took some pics outside. Had a brunch of colored eggs, chocolate almond toast, and fruit. Went to church and survived (always a good thing), had a little Easter devotional, and ate our first at-home cooked HAM. I never cook ham, don't ask why. But I like ham, I like it a lot :]

It seemed like every person that saw Charlotte at church told me how cute she looked. And I'll admit- its pretty much is the most adorable outfit I've ever seen. I was lucky that it arrived in the mail just days before Easter!

I'm so thankful for our little family and that we can have weekends like this together. Things have been stressful with Charlotte teething (its the tooth from HELL) and Talmage's behavior (don't ask).  So it's nice to take a step back and focus on our Savior, his Resurrection, and the blessing that it is to have an eternal family.

happy Easter :]