Happy Easter!

Easter was a lot of fun this year! Ava and I got up and attempted to decorate hard boiled eggs. There is a reason these projects are done at school and not at home with mommy. I am not that mommy. I know my limitations as a mom. Cole and Ava opened Easter baskets and Easter gifts and at this point we are debating to just let them eat every piece of chocolate and candy until they pass out or spread it out over the next 5 years. I don't know if I have ever seen so many chocolate eggs. We were able to go to the big Easter Egg Hunt this year in Baxter whereas last year we were still in the very tail end of quarantine.

First, Ava and Cole met the Easter Bunny and took pictures with him. That was a miracle in itself! Ava won't think of even having Santa in her sights! I will say that the Easter bunny is not as bizarre looking to a 1 and 3 year old. We thanked the Easter Bunny for the Easter baskets he brought that morning, took pictures with him, and then headed over to the age appropriate area to hunt for eggs. Our ages to hunt ranged from 0 to 3 years old, which makes up most of the population in Baxter, so you can imagine the area we were in to get eggs. CHAOS! Nah, actually it wasn't as crazy as we thought it would be. We had a big green grass square to line up around and all the hundreds of plastic eggs were right out in sight. This was torture to make the little ones wait and look, but don't touch. So you can imagine what that was like for all of us parents while they made them all wait another 15 minutes after gathering around. None of them could understand why they couldn't just bend down and put the eggs in the basket because they were right there. It was pretty comical herding this age around each other and parents and everyone trying to be polite but not miss catching their little one on video or still shots. As all of us parents know, it is tough trying to capture those priceless moments. It usually doesn't happen and we throw in the towel after almost being in tears.....sweating, gritting your teeth and trying every stupid dancing on your head trick you know that at one time made your children fall over with laughter. However, now it only gets you a stone face stare or being ignored all together. As you will see in our pictures, it was still a lot of fun. They were moments to laugh about because real life is not picture perfect...especially in pictures.

It was over in a matter of about 3 minutes or less, but we cherish the good, bad, and ugly because they are only this age once and too soon there won't be any more decorating eggs, or finding items to make Easter baskets special, or egg hunts or trying to get pictures that will capture the sweet moments that never quite get caught on camera.

Here is Ava trying to help keep Cole in the picture but more or less managing to choke him while he screamed.

Here is Cole trying to keep Ava with him so she can't go run to get on the moon bounce and she's prying his sweet chubby dimpled hands off her dress.

Cole screaming because he didn't want help while Ava tries not to pee herself waiting for me to get the perfect picture.