"happy eater!" - part 2

after church, we drove out to grandma glenda's and grandpa dan's for the big easter egg hunt and party. jon found the cutest easter basket for hana this year, but the felt handle is unreinforced, so there were frequent egg-a-lanches until i stepped in to help out. the weather was beautiful: sunny and warm. all of the kids got a little early season tanning because we all forgot to put sunscreen on.

in order to let the easter bunny do his work hiding the eggs, we took the kids on a walk. it was our very own easter parade!






the easter egg hunt started with a kid stampede. the little ones (hana, jack and charlie) were allowed to go first, so as to avoid an "us festival" debacle.

i held hana's basket while she looked for eggs.

charlotte looked especially cute on easter. her egg hunting strategy was pretty amusing as well. she would pick the eggs up and shake them. if she didn't like the sound of the rattle, or if it had no rattle at all (as in the case of real eggs) she would toss 'em back. as a result, she grossed a lot of eggs with candy and money, and far fewer eggs containing stickers or actual yolks n' such.

hana and charlie stayed pretty close together. hana collected her own eggs, but reaped most of charlies rejects.

"look mommy! that's a big one!!!" when i told her that it was a ball and there there was nothing inside, she tossed it. she's becoming a shrewd candy consumer.

midway through the hunt, hana wanted to bust into the the booty and eat some candy. since i didn't have a chance to weed out all of the chocolate, jaw breakers and gum, i encouraged her to press on since there would be plenty of time for candy later. and let me just say, it's not like hana ate anything but candy before this time. i think she had a little nutrition at home (in the form of a muffin) but she ate jelly bellys all through church, which kept her pretty happy and quiet.

at one point, one of the kids discovered an egg in the tree. this prompted hana to start searching the skies for eggs...

after the little kids hunt, there was a special, more challenging hunt for the 3 older kids (2 middle school and 1 high school), these eggs all had money (bills) in them... with the "big money egg" being the one with the $20 in it. all the little kids "helped".

when that was over, and eggs and candy had been sorted, the kids found their respective corners in the yard where they commenced to eating an inordinate amount of candy.

jack and hana have a pretty special bond. well, all of the kids are pretty tight. but jack has been known to throw a midweek tantrum or two because hana's not around. here they are "sharing" a seat on a rock... just before hana pushes him off.

it was a really fun (totally nap-free) exhausting weekend. next stop: mother's day!