Easter

We had a wonderful Easter season filled with lots of festivities, including about a bazillion egg hunts. :) It all began last Saturday with an egg hunt at Hy-Vee. It was crowded and over quickly, but the Easter bunny was there and Tatum loved that. 

We went from that hunt right to another one. This one was probably the funnest for Tatum. We decided to take her to the older kids half because it wasn't as crowded and that ended up being a good choice. (And no, we didn't do it so we could get more candy. Brennan is the only one who likes candy around here anyway. Not true, Tatum likes it too but we limit that, obviously.) But the lack of a crowd allowed Tatum to take her time, which is the only thing she knows how to do. After it started we looked over at the younger side and there was no moving room. There were more kids in that age group and then they are young enough that in a crowd like that they have to be accompanied by an adult. Very congested.

Waiting for the hunt to start.

As you can see she wasn't in much of a hurry, she's a bit of a people watcher. :)

I love this photo.

A rare photo of all four of us.

 After a birthday party at the park we headed to the local garden center for kids day. Tatum got to plant a couple flowers and color pictures and check out some animals.

Planting a flower with daddy.

She loved all the animals.

The baby goats were definitely my favorite. So cute!

She really wanted to hold the baby chicks.

Next on our list of Easter fun was playing Don't Eat the Peep! This was Tatum's first experience with Don't Eat Pete (or some version of it) and she loved it. It involves m&ms, how could she not? I am loving her outfit in this next photo. She insisted, we weren't leaving the house, so I decided to not fight that battle haha.

Next up was the Saturday before Easter. There was an Easter egg hunt at the Church, most of Tatum's eggs had stickers in them. She loved that and so did I! We went straight from that hunt to one in Mt. Vernon with my parents. The Easter bunny was at this one too and he terrified Tatum for some reason. So much so that she basically refused to look for eggs. Grandma finally convinced her to get some. We then headed to Grandma and Papa's house to dye some eggs with shaving cream.

This was a Pinterest idea. It certainly has potential but definitely needs some tweaking.

Tatum was a little weird about getting her hands dirty. We obviously need to play in the dirt a little more. 

Luckily Grandma had some popsicle sticks so Tatum could basically paint the eggs and keep her hands squeaky clean.

We headed home that afternoon to do our traditional kool-aid egg dying.

So Declan hung out in the bumbo while we dyed, as you can see. At one point he had his binky and he took it out of his mouth and threw it...

right into the red kool-aid cup. Nice shot, kid!

That entire evening Brennan was busy making these lovely little cupcakes for Easter dessert. This is only half of them and they weren't finished at this point. He still had to dip them in melted chocolate. They were a lot of work and required dirtying almost every dish in our house, but they were delicious!

Easter morning started out rough. Tatum was tired and emotional. Exhibit A:

Declan, however, was happy and super excited to get his puffs. And seeing his basket finally convinced Tatum to go find her basket.

This year was my first year "hosting" Easter, or any major holiday for that matter. I say "hosting" because my mom still made a lot of the food but I did make the ham and the turkey, so that counts for something right? We had my mom and dad, the Eskelsens, and the Leighs over and it was a lot of fun with a lot of yummy food. My mom did an egg hunt for the grandkids/mostly Tatum since the other kids are getting too old/cool for that. :)

Out to hunt for eggs, yet again.

 Kelbie helping Tatum out.

Me and mom and dad on the observation deck.

Tatum's best bud.

 Tatum was really excited about Declan's puffs. I hadn't decided if I was going to start giving them to him but she was insistent. He did great and loved them! And Tatum loved feeding them to him.

 Check out this handsome man all ready for Church. 

We finished off Easter by going to the Lamb of God oratorio that Brennan performed in (he even had a solo). He did great as did the rest of the choir and it was the perfect way to end the day. We went the week before, but this time my dad was so generous and pretty much took care of both kids himself the whole time so I felt like I was able to listen a lot more and it was very powerful. Amid all those egg hunts and egg dying and candy eating we did remember why were celebrating. We love our Savior, Jesus Christ, and we are so grateful to Him for the ultimate sacrifice that He made for us. And we know that He lives! And because He lives we will live again, death is not the end, and I can be with the people I love forever!

We hope you all had a great Easter!