Sunday, December 29, 2013

Easter Sunday 2013

As usual for Easter Sunday we headed down to Justin's cousin's in Texas City. We went to church for an hour before going back home and seeing what the Easter Bunny brought.  As turned out, going to church was a nightmare.  Even though our boys hadn't had any candy that morning and didn't eat much the night before either they were all super restless and difficult during the hour we went to church. We left feeling like it was the worst Sunday we had ever had.

The boys were all pretty excited to get their baskets.  The Easter bunny gives them some candy and some other items.  The funny thing is that Joel is the only one of our kids really likes candy all that much.  But he REALLY loves it to make up for Jeremy not liking it at all and Jacob only liking a few things.
Jeremy
Joel
Jacob
Best attempt at getting a pic of all my boys in their matching Easter outfits
After doing Easter baskets and once I got the rolls made, we headed out to Texas City.  Traffic was horrible trying to get to the freeway because so many people were going to later services at their church (and most of them only go a couple times a year anyway).  It made me wish even more that we hadn't bothered to go to church that morning.

Once we got down to Justin's cousin's it was time for the egg hunt.  Back at Easter our cousins there ranged in age from 11 years old to 15 years old so their egg hunt is much different than my kids' egg hunt.  They are hunting eggs filled with money and my kids don't care about money or understand what it is.  Justin's dad got some candy to hide for the kids, but with only one super-sweet tooth child that wasn't too enticing to them either.  They really liked playing on the trampoline though.

After the egg hunt we had a wonderful ham dinner and after more socializing it was time to head home.

We only thought traffic was bad headed down to Texas City, but that was because we didn't know how completely awful it would be once we headed home.  I'm pretty sure I've blocked from my memory how long it took us to get home, but I definitely remember being completely stuck on 45 just coming into downtown and having to have Jacob potty in a cup because we hadn't moved for 20 minutes.

We're grateful that we don't live in Florida like we did the first couple years we were married and that it is easier to see family.  But after the long drives getting to family and getting back home on Easter Sunday it really made us wish that maybe one holiday a year could be done at our own house.  It is really hard to have 3 little kids and cart them around to houses that are not child-proofed in anyway whatsoever.

Easter Saturday 2013

We celebrated Easter on Saturday (back in the Spring) with friends and then on Sunday with family.

On Saturday afternoon we dyed a few eggs with the kids.  Jacob was the most interested in the process.



After we worked on the eggs we were busy cleaning and cooking and sent the boys to play outside.  We then had a party with some of our friends!

Counting us there were 4 families and we had a potluck dinner where everyone brought a main dish and a side dish.  We decided that there are always plenty of sweets around for Easter so we didn't really do any desserts.  At least I wasn't supposed to, but I made these cute little pudding carrot patch cups anyway.
The carrots are made from orange starburst and green twizzlers
We all ate lots of yummy food and then we had an egg hunt for the kiddos.  We had each family bring filled eggs - 10 for each kid they had hunting.  Some of the kids went crazy looking for eggs (which we didn't bother really hiding and most were just out in full view.  My kids don't really get it and weren't super excited after the initial "I found an egg".

Poor Justin.  He is always so miserable for Easter.  Justin officially has the world's worst allergies in the spring.  People always tell me that they have bad allergies too, but I have never met someone who suffered as much as he does in the month of March and into April.  He really cannot even go outside because when he does his eyes immediately start swelling up.  When it gets really bad, he wears a mask that makes him look like an alien just to walk out to the car and drive to the park and ride.  And ever since he was so sick and on all those steroids his allergies are just debilitating.

That said, Justin stood inside and snapped pics of all the kids during the Easter egg hunt while all the other parents were outside with their kiddos.  So here are just some of the pictures that Justin took.















Saturday, December 28, 2013

Things to post

I have plans to get all caught up on our family blog, but life happens and instead I keep falling further and further behind. The last 6 weeks or so have been incredibly busy and stressful which means that blogging has been one of the least pressing things on my mind. I do want to get caught up though and so I'm making a list of things that should be here, hopefully I'll check them off one by one over the next month or two.

Easter
End of school year festivities
Summer part 1 and part 2
Going back to work
Back to school
Halloween
Thanksgiving/Christmas part 1
Our first family vacation
Jacob turned 5
Christmas part 2
Our "new" car and our new car

Wish me luck!