Easter Fun!

Well, our Easter this year was bound to be better than last year, because we were all together… and it was!  It was also very busy, though, so prepare yourself for lots of pictures! :)

So, sometimes it seems like too much work to hardboil and dye eggs… but after watching how much fun the girls had, I’m glad we did!  Nothing spectacular, I just got the $1 dye kit at Walmart, and hardboiled the eggs we had (9).  Which was about the right number, since they each did several, and then lost their attention span, so Daddy and I got to do a few, too! :)  

Tolerating her mother… I can’t wait until she’s a teenager…

(PS, check out the 2 year old fit being thrown just off screen.  Nice.)

Audrey was not really all about the let-it-sit-and-color technique.  She subscribed to the thrash-it-around technique instead.  She was constantly digging in the water.

Like I said, Audrey liked to dig, so this is what the purple egg ended up looking like… not exactly smooth! :)

All of the final products…

On the Saturday before Easter, our church had an egg hunt for the kids, and the youth helped out, so of course we were all there!  They played some fun games, which Laney absolutely refused to participate in (stick in the mud), but both girls were all kinds of excited when it came to actually finding the eggs! 

Audrey didn’t really get the idea of grabbing as fast as she could- she wanted to pick them up and open them one at a time!

Laney, on the other hand, was moving so fast I had a hard time getting a picture of her!

Laney and her friend, Layne, comparing hauls!

After the egg hunt, the youth took off to do an Easter themed scavenger hunt.  We sent them all over the place to find eggs, sheep, purple robes, flowers… lots of randomness!  We had 2 teams and 2 other leaders, so we sent the teams with the other leaders while Josh, the girls and I chased them around taking pictures.  It was pretty fun!

The teams!

Miss A, helping us track them down!

After the scavenger hunt, we surprised the youth kids with a trip to Kart Kountry.  This is a really neat place about half an hour from Etown where they have the longest go-kart track in the world- 1.5 miles!  And they have a huge arcade, putt-putt, bumper boats… just about everything!  It was a little rough at first with the girls (I didn’t know to bring a stroller, and when we got there Audrey ran one way while Laney ran the other, and I was kind of at a loss), but once we got everything under control, we really had a good time.  And both Laney AND Audrey got to take their first go-kart rides! 

Laney, all buckled in for her ride!!

And… she loved it!!

And Audrey spent that whole time trying to squeeze through the fence and saying “Ride!  Ride!  Ride!” over and over.  So, even though I thought she was a little small, I figured she could take a spin, too!

I was taking Laney on a ride, so I couldn’t take pictures of A as well… but here’s a quick cell phone shot of her car as Daddy strapped her in!

Both girls LOVED the go-kart rides, although Josh and I will probably both feel better about Audrey doing it next year, when she’s a little bigger!  After go-karts, we headed to the putt-putt course, which was quite entertaining, what with a 2 and a 4 year old and all! :)  But we didn’t even get Audrey a club (she mostly chucked her ball down the course) and Laney played the hockey-style putt-putt, where you just push the ball around until it lands in the hole (c’mon, we’ve all done it!).  Audrey was quite entertaining, because she didn’t get the whole leaving other people’s balls alone thing, so she would walk to the hole after we had all made a first shot and start picking up balls and dropping them in the hole.  Pretty entertaining, but don’t think either of them are ready for the majors!!

Check out the pose… this girl is something!!

Too busy to pose- Audrey spent a lot of time digging Smarties out of her pockets, which usually involved yanking her t-shirt up to her armpits!

So, the youth party the night before, and Sunrise Service early Easter morning made for a short, short night!  But we managed to get the girls up and dressed (along with making biscuits and gravy for the breakfast, and Easter baskets made in the quiet).  and they looked pretty darn cute! Love my girls!

I put the Easter baskets out while Josh was loading the girls in the car, so they were surprised when we got home from church.  We thought it’d be better that way- a good reminder that church is far more important than baskets on Easter.  But, the baskets sure were fun, too!

We might have overdone it with the little gifts (chalk, books, etc), so we had to make an entirely separate basket for candy for everyone to share… can’t have a basket without Reese’s and Snickers eggs!

Audrey’s basket with all of her favorite things- sidewalk chalk, crayons, a movie, a book, and bubbles!

And Laney’s basket, which was obviously a bike helmet instead of a basket, which she loved!  Plus the usual goodies- bubbles, a VeggieTales, and a book!

Digging in!

Laney had to try on her helmet first thing, of course!

After digging through baskets (and sampling a little candy) we had a quick lunch and took good, LOOOONG naps!  We all needed them!!  Afterwards, we headed outside to enjoy the beautiful weather, and have a little egg hunt of our own!

Audrey was ready to go enjoy ALL of her new Easter toys!

Audrey did a pretty good job finding eggs this time… and she was quite excited about it!!

Laney was quite determined to get the eggs… she even started climbing the wall!

Anyway, after some outside time, we capped off our Easter celebrations with a yummy spiral sliced ham and all the fixins!  Pretty delicious!

It was hard not to spend this Easter with our extended family, but I was so happy to at least have our family back together!  We had a great time celebrating our Savior, and remembering the joy of the day He rose from the grave. 

Laney’s First Hair Cut

 

It’s hard to believe, but Laney hasn’t ever had her hair cut… yep, 4 and a half years, and no hair cuts.  But, well, she had zero hair when she was born, and I’ve been meaning to get around to it, but just haven’t.  Well, I guess she got tired of waiting.

Tuesday night was pretty normal for us; I have a meeting on Tuesdays at 6:30, so it’s pretty much home, dinner, Mommy leaves again.  The girls and I got home later than normal, so I was rushing to get dinner ready.  I didn’t notice anything unusual, though, Laney was in and out of the kitchen the whole time.  And then Josh got home, and we ate dinner, and afterwards Josh walked into the bathroom and found a chunk of hair on the floor next to a ponytail holder.  He showed it to me because he was worried that so much hair was coming out with her ponytail holders… yeah, I looked at it, and saw that the ends were all even, and figured that hair wasn’t yanked out, it was CUT!  So we started looking around, and found a few more little chunks on the floor.  Not bad, though… and then we saw this:

And then the panic started!  We called Laney in and started looking at her hair, and, sure enough, there were chunks missing.  Thankfully, she didn’t do the typical grab-your-bangs-and-cut-at-the-scalp move, she mostly just took chunks out of the back.  But, it was definitely NOT even:

We talked to her about why she did it (“I wanted my hair to be pretty!”) and why it wasn’t a good idea.  And we tried really hard not to laugh hysterically the whole time, but it was pretty funny!  Poor thing, though, since I had a meeting she had to go to school with crazy hair, because I didn’t have time to cut it Tuesday night!

Wednesday after school I soaked her hair and trimmed it up, and it ended up looking like this:

Actually really cute, and no permanent damage done.  Although, she did manage to cut one chunk considerably shorter than the rest!  You can only see it in the back…

See… right there!

Thankfully, it doesn’t show when her hair is up or anything else.  I didn’t want to cut her hair that short, so it’ll just have to grow out!

It looks awfully cute (and grown up!) in a ponytail, though…

Just as a comparison, here is her ponytail earlier this week… she lost a lot of length!

Anyway, live and learn, I guess… hair cutting was bound to happen, so at least there wasn’t too much damage done!  And it forced me to finally cut her hair… and it’s a hilarious story to tell later!  Much of parenting is one hilarious story after another, I’ve discovered…

Happy Day, Happy Day!

So, Laney is definitely a go-and-do, hang out with lots of people, be the center of attention kind of girl… like her Daddy!  Audrey, on the other hand, is happiest hanging out at home, playing outside.  So, for her birthday, that’s what we did!  We’d just had people over for Josh’s birthday the weekend before, so we decided to keep it simple for Miss A’s party, and she didn’t seem to mind!

We let her pick the food, of course, and she picked hot dogs, of course.  I came to the realization that 3 of the 4 members of our family see hot dogs as a totally viable birthday dinner choice.  Seriously, they can have anything in the world, and they pick HOT DOGS!  Oh well, at least it’s simple!  We loaded up with some of her other favorite foods, like strawberries and french fries.  And we picked up some corn on the cob, which she’d never tried before.  Anyway, it was pretty delicious, even if it was just hot dogs!  The best part for Audrey was she got to play outside while Josh was grilling, and she’d pretty much rather be outside than anywhere else in the world!

Miss A, digging into her birthday dinner on the special plate!

She hadn’t ever had corn on the cob before… but she jumped right in!

Audrey picked a funfetti cake with sprinkles, and I actually got a little creative and wrote her name on it… and we broke out the birthday hat from Laney’s first birthday!

A was pretty funny while we were singing… it was like she wasn’t used to being the center of attention!

Helping (or, mostly watching) Daddy blow out her candles!

Miss A definitely did get what opening presents was about, though!  She was quite excited about the giant box…

…and even more excited when she saw what was in it!  A Sleeping Beauty toddler doll and dress up dress.  Audrey LOVES dressing up, and dolls, so we thought it was perfect!

Unfortunately, someone else thought it was perfect… Miss E is not used to sharing the spotlight, and she really wanted that same doll/dress combo, so she MELTED DOWN when Audrey opened it…

Sad, and kinda funny at the same time… it’s a hard lesson to learn, but gotta learn it sometime!

And, let’s be honest, Audrey has the attention span of, well, of a 2 year old, so a couple of hours later, Laney looked like this:

So, there it is, a fun day to celebrate Miss A!  And, in the interest of more celebration, here are two totally random shots from the last week or so… just hilarious, and great blackmail material! :)

She loves the bath, and has the perfect amount of hair for shampoo sculptures!

As for this one… well, there really are no words…