Easter 2012

We had a wonderful Easter holiday this year! We packed up the car and headed to MiMi and PaPaw's house Saturday afternoon and the boys had already written letters to the Easter bunny letting him know we were going to be over there for the evening.

Saturday morning we woke up and had special bunny pancakes for breakfast! Gamma and Gampa sent a special bunny cupcake kit in the mail but we put the goodies on top of our pancakes and they were so much fun!

It was a great way to start the Easter weekend!

The weather couldn't have been more perfect, either, for the weekend! The boys played outside practically the entire time and we had a hamberger/veggie berger cookout Saturday night. My parents house has lots of huge trees for shade and an amazing hammock for drifting off. It was the perfect lazy afternoon while the boys played in the boys concocted a "pirate boat with a plank into the swimming pool" (which was basically the baby pool at the end of a slide. I should preface by saying Elijah is COMPLETELY into pirates right now. It's been his past month or so phase.)

Here is Joaquin checking out a snail with his magnifying glass

Here is Elijah setting up his pirate boat/playground to be able to walk the plank into the pool.

The next morning the boys woke up early and ran to the front porch to see if the Easter bunny had gotten the heads up and known to hop by MiMi and Papaw's house and drop off goodies.

Joaquin got a baseball jersey from the Easter bunny

His bunny ears and sticker egg

Elijah has a serious sweet tooth and he jumped into his basket head first!

Elijah's favorite thing was the Easter bunny pirate garb he got! He has been religiously wearing the one skull shirt he has pretty much every day and every night for the past month; resulting in fits and tears when he can't wear it because mommy has to wash it, so the Easter bunny gave him a new skull shirt and a doggie pirate hat. Can you tell he is excited?

Joaquin in his new bunny ears mask

Elijah in his

The boys goofing around in their masks

We had a sugar filled morning and then of course tried to settle ourselves down enough to get dressed for church. We spent the morning in the First Baptist Church of Moody with my parents. It is a precious little old church down the road from my parents house. All the kids had an Easter egg hunt during the big people service, so the boys loaded up on even more candy and were high flying by the time we headed back to MiMi and Papaws for lunch.

Our family Easter picture before heading to church

Mom and I's "Easter bonnets"

Mom had just gotten back from a few days in Round Top (the worlds largest flea market type gathering). And she had a treat for me when I arrived; an Easter Bonnet. :) We had fun wearing our hats to church and feeling all dressed up!

End of the day; end of the candy. This is where we ended.

Gamma and Gampa Egg Fun!

The boys received a wonderful Easter box in the mail from Gamma and Gampa today and we had sooooooo much fun doing the egg dyes! The box of goodies contained a special egg kit to make aliens and spaceship eggs.

They were so much fun!

If you haven't done it in a while, dying eggs is serious business! We had to change out of our good clothes and get on "painting shirts" because that dye is lethal! After we made our hard boiled eggs and prepared our vinegar and water dye mixtures, the boys had fun coloring their eggs with a wax pencil that kept the waxed area white while dying.

After putting some color on our eggs, we used all the fun stickers in the egg kit to put on googly eyes and arms and all sorts of nonsense!

I was very proud of their work! :)

Although it took significant set up and prep time, this was such a fun Easter activity! Thanks Gamma and Gampa for the awesome memories!

Joaquin putting stickers on his eggs. (He got a bit of dye on his face, of course)

Elijah posing with his first alien egg!

Trying to get the boys to pose with the eggs

Our finished products!

School Easter Hunt

He boys had a blast at their Mother's Day Out Easter Party today. Joaquin is still kinda learning about not opening the eggs until the hunt is over. He has a tendency to want to open them right away and eat the candy out, but then he is misses the chance to get more eggs, and before long, they are all gone!

So, mommy had a little practice session with him and reminded him to get as many eggs as he can until the teacher says the hunt is over; THEN we eat the candy. :)

Elijah knows the name of the game by now and he shot out of the starting gates with focus! He grabbed so many eggs he shared a lot of the loot with his bubba.

It is always a trick when going to school events with little guys in two different classes. They both hunted on two different playgrounds at the same time so I tried to ping pong back and forth and grab some photos while I could.

Enjoy:

Elijah on the playground after his hunt

Happy boy about to begin!

Grabbing the loot

More finds

Showing me the biggest egg he found

showing off on the slide afterwards

Joaquin on his playground before the hunt begins

posing for pics

his first find

showing me his basket

going for more eggs

my sweet Joaquin, posing with his class

Joaquin's Mother's Day Out class with their Easter baskets

An afternoon of mud

For 5 days straight it RAINED and RAINED here. I was going out of my head trying to think of things for the boys to do inside the house morning, noon, and night. We played play-dough, made forts, painted, colored, made puppets, had puppet shows, cooked cupcakes, made musical theater, watched movies and the likes.

Yet, on day 6, when the sun suddenly appeared, the boys went running outside in the backyard and I didn't stop them! Sooner than later, I realized they were going to get REALLY dirty on account of all the rain we had just had, so I just decided to go with it. The boys stripped down to their birthday suits and played in the mud for hours!

This was their favorite spot in the corner of the yard. They were playing makeshift mudslides, like a slip-n-slide, all along the grass and into the big mud puddle.

However, after a few hours of innocent muddy fun, the throwing mud became and issue and a few faces of mud later, we headed to the hose to clean off and into the shower to wash our hair.

In any case, it was a fun memory. :)

The Kite Festival

The guys and I had a great weekend! It was Austin's annual Kite Festival in Zillker Park. If you aren't aware, Zillker Park is Austin's largest park that is the home for tons of festivals (like Austin City Limits and SXSW) as well as other fun family treats. It is right on the river and close to downtown, so it is a beautiful place to fly a kite! :)

We actually decided to go to the festival because Aunt Kellye was singing at the sculpture gardens and so we thought it would be a great time for the boys to hear her do her thang. (Since she usually sings late at night and in jazz clubs and bars that wouldn't be appropriate to bring a 2 year old to.) However, fate didn't have work it out that way for us to get to hear Kellye sing on Sunday because after walking an hour and a half just to get into the park, we were all so exhausted we just plopped our picnic gear down and had a rest. By the time things were all eaten, Kellye's show was long gone. :(

However, we did have a nice day in the park watching all the fabulous different kind of kites and contraptions flying in the skye!

Here are a few pics from Sunday at the Kite Festival.

My handsome man, relaxing

The boys enjoying their lunch under a tree.

You can see the Austin skyline in the background.

Baby #3

Looks like I'm gonna be getting out all the old maternity clothes again! Baby number 3 is coming in October! We are hoping for a girl this time, obviously, but he/she will arrive at a time of celebration, I'm sure!

We don't have a due date yet, so I will keep you posted as we head into our first ultra sound the first week of March! Time to send up the prayers for our growing little bundle!

The boys have taken to giving mommy's tummy a kiss goodnight before heading to bed each night and it is so precious! The family is excited!

Yeah!

Happy Valentine's Day

We had a wonderful Valentine's this year, except for the boys getting a little carried away with the candy! Joaquin and Elijah had Valentine parties at their little Mother's Day Out at the church and we sat down to make their Valentine cards the day before. Both Elijah and Joaquin had selected a special girl to give a "special" Valentine card to that said, "Thank you for being my special friend".

They we both very excited to head to school, give out their Valentine's and collect all their goodies. Of course, just like every holiday with candy, I always have an internal battle of whether or not to let them eat all the candy or not. However, they had already eaten sooooo much candy at school, they didn't even ask for it at home! I was shocked, but we put it up on top of the fridge and saved it for another day. Those two boys were bushed after all the partying at school!

However, that night, right after bath time, Joaquin began getting rid of all that candy! While having story time in bed with mommy and daddy, he threw up all of the day's goodies! We had to put him back in the bathtub and start over for night night time.

That was, until a few hours later he started crying upstairs after another throwing up episode in his bed! Whew! Candy is NOT ALWAYS FUN!

What was fun, however, was the boys getting a box full of Valentine gifts from Gamma and Gampa the next week! They both ripped open their gifts to find fun new books! Joaquin got a set of Elmo open door books, which he loves, and Elijah got a letter practicing book, which he dove right into! Here are a few pics of the boys with their new gifts.
This is daddy and Joaquin laying on the bed reading. Sorry that the view was from me standing on the bed.
Here is Elijah practicing his letters and filling in the activity book!

Thanks Gamma and Gampa!