An Early Easter

Since my brother was visiting from Montana, we decided to celebrate Easter a week early this year.  As a result, we did all of the things Easter related during a very busy weekend of Lia's final three Freaky Friday shows and Ella's state gymnastics meet.  But with some planning, I was able to pull it off.  We gathered around the kitchen table on Saturday morning after track practice to dye Easter eggs together.  We then woke up Sunday morning to the children's Easter baskets waiting for them on the living room couches.  The children then found their hidden Easter eggs around our house before getting ready for church at eleven o'clock.  Since Ella and Ron had to leave while the rest of us were at church to drive the 2.5 hours north for her to compete in the state gymnastics meet in Lynden, the three other children and me drove to Issaquah to spend the evening with my family.  We enjoyed eating a delicious dinner together before participating in my mom's Easter egg hunt in the house since it was raining really hard outside.  We made the most of it and enjoyed finishing off the evening celebrating both of my parent's birthdays that are in the next two weeks.  We watched both of them open gifts and enjoyed eating cake at the end of the evening.  Although we missed Ella and Ron, it was a special treat to have Brent and Susie join us for this holiday. 

March 28th:

We let Lia sleep in on Saturday morning after a long performance on Friday night.  The three younger children colored eggs with Ron and me.

A sad Emmet coloring one of his eggs before dyeing it.  He had just gotten scolded by Ron and was not feeling happy about life when I snapped this picture.  The poor guy.

Ella drawing a design on her egg with a permanent marker.

Logan working on one of his eggs.

March 29th:

Emmett's basket and goodies laying on the couch before the children came downstairs to find them.

Ella's basket and other presents.

Logan's basket and other gifts.

Lia's basket and goodies.

Emmett holding up his new dog and hedgehog Palm Pals stuffed animals that he found in his basket.

Ella holding up her three new Palm Pal stuffies.  These are a current favorite of the two younger children.

Logan still enjoys building complex Lego sets from time to time.  He was excited to discover that he gotten the Star Wars BB-8 Lego set to add to the other droid sets he has already built.

Lia wearing her new Disney Belle ears while holding up her basket.

Emmett giving me a thumb's up after finding an egg hidden on the window sill behind the curtain.

Ella finding an egg on top of the thermostat.

Logan finding one behind the blinds.

Lia showing off an egg hidden in a Mason jar in the pantry.

The three children were assigned different areas to hunt for their twenty goodies at the grandparent's house on Sunday evening.  Emmett was given the basement rec room to find all of his treats.  Here he is finding one on top of the old-fashioned phone.

Lia had to hunt in the storage room.  Here she is pointing to the three little candy bars that my brother, Brent, hid for her on a toy train.

Logan and Trenton were both assigned to the garage.  Here is Logan posing for me by grandpa's lawn mower while searching for candy that Eric had hidden for him.

Although Riley is now off to college, Vivi came home last summer and is working this school year while living at home.  So it was fun to have her join my three kids and Trenton for the hunt this year.  Here is the traditional, group cousin photo that I was able to take of the kids after the hunt was over.