Easter 2014

Easter started out well, with egg dying the day before. 

And then we got into the eggcitement of Easter morning. Here's a little series of Frederick checking out his hard-boiled egg. 

 Here are the kids with all of their Easter bounty....trying to convince me to let them have just one more chocolate before they eat their breakfast. 

And, in case you didn't catch on before, here's what Frederick thought of his hard-boiled egg. You can see that he already 'opened' it in the same manner one would open a plastic egg.

The real fun began when we started trying to get the kids dressed for church. I had all new clothes for them, but I hadn't made Clara do more than slip her new shoes on one time. When it came time to actually wear them, they were just too tight on her. They weren't going to work with tights or without. We had no other shoe options for her. Finally I got her to agree that she could stand them long enough to wear into church and out of church. She could slip them off during the service and had complete permission to be barefoot the rest of the day. Thus, the barefoot attempts at a 3-kids photo: 

(Awww....) 

And the somewhat grumpy-faced barefoot attempt at a family photo. 

Alas, at the last minute, Clara had to run back in the house to get Rebecca. Somehow the shoes got left behind. (Ironically, I just remembered that I was slightly worried about whether Rebecca had her shoes for church....)

When we pulled up to church and had an extra minute to get out and play at the park, Clara announced that she didn't have any shoes. She didn't bring her shoes at all. Oy. I tried calling Whole Foods to see whether they carried kid-sized Tom's, and then Mom suggested Walgreen's (the only 2 stores close enough to get to in the time I had, and open on Easter morning). Clara and I ran over to Walgreen's and asked the lady at the front "do you have any shoes of any sort?" She directed us to the end-cap of aisle 1 which had some ugly fake Crocs in adult sizes and a small selection of flip-flops. Clara chose the black with pink and green flowers. We got back to church in time. 

The kids were very good little people during church. It helped that they had passed out little activity booklets and mini paper baskets of treats for the kids. 

 Here are my 3 boys enjoying some sort of trumpet voluntary or the Hallelujah chorus. 

I was ready for an Easter glass of wine, but we did take advantage of the beautiful weather and let the kids play a bit more at the park before heading back to Grandma and Bampa's house. 

We had quite a time trying to get a family photo taken. I think this one is my favorite. 

Clara wanted a photo of peeking through the window with Rebecca. 

Frederick enjoyed checking out Stuart.

 Hiya, Stu! 

There was more egg hunting in the backyard. 

 Frederick's technique was: find egg, open egg, drop M&Ms on the ground, pick up M&Ms and eat them. 

 Grandparents supervised from the deck. 

 Frederick may have encouraged Vivian to eat dirty M&Ms. 

 Henry is getting so big, but he still loves hunting for eggs. It's very important to him that the egg finding is fair and equal. 

 "What?" 

 H & C checked out front, just in case...

 so I took the opportunity to get a nice front-of-house photo with Grandma. 

 Vivian chose to disrobe a bit and then help Grandma clean the table. 

The two 'big' girls played a little house under the dining room table. 

 Henry enjoyed some Lego shenanigans with the lamb cake. 

And I took a selfie with my mama. I believe a good time was had by all!