Easter

I know I'm seriously late posting this but oh my goodness. This was the best Easter, by far, that I can remember! We had so much fun, not only on Easter Sunday, but the entire weekend leading up to it!

On Saturday I filled the kiddie pool and the water table spent the day in the back yard with the kids. Allie is happiest when she's outside and asks to go out all day, so this arrangement suited her fine. JD is happiest when he is in, around or playing with water, so this arrangement worked well for him too! Fortunately our kitchen is in the back of the house, the back door is right by the kitchen and it was a nice day. I propped the back door open so I could hear/see the kids and busied myself making 2 batches of chocolate frosting and a batch of buttercream frosting for the bunny cake. Dave wasn't home much of the day so it was nice to be able to send the kids outside while I worked in the kitchen. There's nothing more annoying than trying to bake/cook with two little kids pulling on your pants!

When Dave got home on Saturday afternoon, we dyed Easter eggs. This is the first year we attempted to let JD help with this task and he did OK. Somewhere along the line I read a tip about slipping an egg into the center of a wire whisk and letting the toddler use that to dip them in the dye. It worked pretty well! JD also had fun trying to scoop the eggs out of the dye with the little metal dipper that comes with the dye package.

Before JD went to bed on Saturday night we put his and Allie's Easter baskets on the kitchen table for the Easter Bunny to fill. Sunday morning began bright and early with the Easter Bunny hiding eggs in the back yard at 5:45. Allie woke around 6:15 and started her day with a waffle. JD woke around 6:30 and found his Easter basket right away!

 After they tore apart their baskets it was time to go outside to hunt eggs. JD did a fantastic job of finding the eggs and had a lot of fun. Allie couldn't have cared less. She just followed JD around, happy to be outside so early in the morning. I couldn't even get her to hold her basket for a picture! She did find one egg and walked over to it but she just looked at it, refusing to pick it up. Her sweet brother grabbed it and put it in her basket for her.

 After egg hunting we headed to Pawleys to have lunch with my parents and Kent and Sarah. We got there pretty early and the kids just played for a while. The Easter Bunny also visited Grandma and Papaw's house so JD had more fun hunting eggs there! Luckily it worked that I was able to feed them lunch around 11:00 and, with a little work, got them both to sleep by 1:00 PM so I could eat lunch in peace. That was nice.

After the adults ate lunch and the kids woke from their naps we headed down the road to Ms. Carol's house for her annual Easter party. It started with yet another egg hunt for the kids. JD found a big plastic egg with a miniature race car in it.  He was very excited about that. A little while later, the adult version of the egg hunt began - the mini bottle hunt. Those of you who are not from South Carolina (even though SC doesn't use mini bottles anymore) may not know what I'm talking about. Miniature bottles of liquor (picture airplane style) were hidden all over her back yard! She does this every year and I swear there are more and more people there each year. It is so much fun! Last year we got there late and didn't get any bottles - they go pretty fast! But this year we were on time and found about 2 dozen.... Not that I'll really drink them (I'm more of a "social drinker" than a "drink at home" kind of person) but it sure was fun finding them!

By the time we got home from that party it was time for dinner, bath and bed! JD said he wanted to camp with Dave (something that he actually did a few weeks ago - I was shocked!) but he couldn't calm down. All he wanted to do was jump on the air mattress and run in circles, so we brought him back inside and put him to bed the normal way. Both kids were worn out and slept well all night, which was a nice Easter treat for Mommy!