Easter Weekend Rewind

I love how refreshed I always feel at Easter time!  Things are greening up,  temps are getting warmer, it's time to bring out your Spring and Summer clothes, which are usually brighter colors... This year, however, Easter was pretty darn early, things aren't greening up fast enough for me and Easter Sunday was COLD!  Add to that it was a gray, cloudy day and I just didn't feel that usual refreshed feeling.  Oh!  And it started off with rain ... you know what they say: If it rains on Easter you can expect the next 7 Sundays of rain.  Boo!

Our Easter celebration started Saturday evening with Andy's family gathering.  We hosted this year and decided to go a little bit off the norm and have a taco bar for supper.  Everyone was into it and enjoyed not having that big meal, which we were all having the next day with our other family's.

Before supper we had the egg hunt.  There was a chance of rain and we knew if we waited until after supper we'd be fighting the sun going down and darkness creeping in.  Andy's brother has 2 girls, ages 12 and 15, so they have outgrown the egg hunt, which just leaves my 4 (wow, still not used to that big number, ha ha!).  Tenley slept in her swing through the whole thing (next year, Lou!) but the 3 boys had fun searching the yard for the bright colored eggs.

Andy's brother hides 2 giant eggs every year that are full of goodies and money.  Aiden found the silver egg that was stuffed with candy and a $5 bill.  He also set 2 boxes of candy next to it.  Brennan needed a few hints but finally found the gold egg.  His had the candy and a $10 bill in it!  He was pretty darn excited!  Tate had a great time spotting as many eggs on the ground as possible.

While I finished up supper they opened all of their eggs and looked over their loot.  Aiden was worried his cousin's would take all of his because I told them to grab as much candy as they wanted so he hid his sack of candy from everyone.  :)  Little does he know I used that sack of candy for Sunday's candy hunt!

Sunday morning we woke up and found that the Easter bunny had visited!  Aiden and Brennan were super excited about going outside to check their baskets.  Tate of course didn't know what was really happening so he was uncertain about what the baskets were all about.  It didn't take him long to grab his and Tenley's and carry them into the house to check out what they got, though.  Shortly after that he decided he needed to go back outside and figure out what that big contraption was.  It was so chilly that we brought the water table in to the house and he played with it in here (no water, yet!).  I can't wait to see what he thinks of that table with water in it!

Following the basket fun we ate breakfast then we popped in the Star Wars Episode IV DVD that Bren was given for his birthday.  Nothing screams Easter like Star Wars, ha ha!  We all watched for a bit then I worked on corn casserole for our family dinner. We all got ready and headed out to head to dinner and church.

Easter dinner with the Marie's is quite the deal!  There are around 75 people (maybe more?) that show up. There are 3 or 4 banquet tables put together to hold all of the food, everyone brings a dish to pass.  Every year there is one thing that multiple people bring, a variation on a recipe. This year it was meatballs and deviled eggs.  Funny how that works!

We stuffed ourselves then a few of the adults headed out to throw candy in the church yard for the egg/candy hunt.  I took most of the candy the boys found the night before, plus a big box of fruit snacks for the toddlers.  It's so fun to watch that stream of kids come running out of the church hall.  It doesn't take long for them to find all of the candy!

Once the candy hunt was over it was time to head back to our house so my folks could give the 6 grandkids their baskets of goodies.  Once everyone left we all kind of crashed.  The big boys went to the basement to watch cartoons and chill, the Sweet T's both took a nap (and so did Andy) and I worked on putting away the Easter decorations and cleaning up the aftermath of yet another holiday.

I messed up big time and didn't get a picture of all the kids together in their Easter best.  No one really got all that dressed up this year anyway, except for Tenley, so here she is in her Easter dress and ribbon sandals.