Eastover? Passter?

It doesn't really matter what you call it I guess. The holidays mean different things to different people at different times. For instance, Passover to me will always be Matzah Brittle and something about plagues. Easter is Cadbury Creme eggs, sacrifice, and baskets full of sugar and toys.

And certainly isn't complete without a pair of giddy munchkins dancing around at far too early of an hour that morning.

But the holidays are also about time spent with family with no expectations other than maybe a good crime fight or two

 and a little time to sit around watching the world go by while reminiscing about our younger years.

And they're about the comfort found in carrying out long held traditions. And the chance to make a few new ones too. 

But I think most of all--for me anyway--holidays are a time of reflection. A time to really examine one's life and acknowledge all the blessings there in. It helps to have really big glasses for this part.

The bigger the better. That way when you realize just how much your offspring have changed in a single year, the glasses will help to hide the wistful tears before anyone can see them.

2010

2011

I mean it isn't like I don't want them to grow at all.  I do want them to become more independent and stop whining and fighting and bickering and saying "Mama!" 543400 times in an hour. And it will be nice when they can reach the sink in public restrooms without my having to lift them up. So yes, they are certainly allowed to grow up. Just maybe not quite so fast. Ok?

Color Me Happy

My favorite part of dying Easter eggs is seeing all the colorful bowls lined up before the party starts and the mess ensues. I think this must in some way relate back to my 8 year old self's obsession with Rainbow Brite. An obsession which also probably explains why I like chunky belts and moon boots, but that's probably a story for another day.

Anyway, please enjoy these pictures of the children coloring eggs with Grandma at the lake.

 Yes, that's Grandpa over there steadfastly ignoring the entire process. Not a fan of arts and crafts time.  But he is more than happy to spend countless minutes looking at smiley faces with them. So I guess it all evens out. Somehow.

My second favorite part? All those colored eggs of course. Can you find mine?

Third favorite part? All those yummy egg salad sandwiches that are just on the horizon. Yum yum.

Best Easter Playdate Ever! Part Two: The ABCs of a Good Time

As promised here is part two of our Easter playdate extravaganza. For ease of consumption, I've broken the event down into three simple components. Thoughtful and sweet, am I.


A is for Arts & Crafts

Want to entertain a crowd of pint sized humans? I have two words for you: glitter glue. It's that simple. Really. 

And bonus, you'll end up with lovely pieces of art for your home. Here's an Amaya Original:

And a limited edition ChaseEraser:

B is for Buckets

  Sure, they're great for collecting things,

 but they're even better when they come pre-filled with sugar and toys.

While making these playdate favors, it occurred to me that I was quite selfish in naming my daughter Amaya--that's 3 A's for one tiny person! A's don't grow on trees you know--I specifically know this because I ran out of them. Which is why Chase's bucket had an upside down V with a Z tail for his A, and poor Vivian's bucket was simply labeled Viv. So let that be a warning to you folks--think very carefully about how vowel  greedy you want to be when naming your children. If you fail to heed this advice, it will surely come back to bite you one day when you find yourself having to label 8 Easter buckets.  Or um something.


C is for Chaos...like mad yo

This was some kind of seek and destroy mission involving a giant flyswatter and lots of shrieks and giggles. 

This was a snake hunt. I heard one of the girls saying: Here snakey snakey snakey! I am pretty sure it was Amaya. Which is odd, since that is the last thing her mother would ever do. Actually try to entice a snake to come closer? Insane. 

This was bumper slide with the added element of trying to pull Allie back onto the ramp.
 

It ended like this:

Like I said, mad chaos yo.

Best Easter Playdate Ever! Part One:The Hunt for Ovoids

Midway through the evening, Chase rather exuberantly deemed this little get together the Best Easter Playdate Ever which might be a bit effusive, but it was certainly in the top five. Beautiful weather, happy kids, yummy food, lots of great photo opportunities. So many in fact, that I am dividing the event up into two blog posts which is good for you because it means you get to see more pictures of cute kids. It's also good for me because it means that I don't have to think about what to post later this week. See, everyone is happy here. Best Easter Blog Post EVER.

Up first: It's the Great Egg Hunt Charlie Brown.

On your mark!

Get set!

Go!

One of the main reasons that we chose this house was for the lot, and it's days like this that I'm so thankful that we did. I love our backyard--it's big, but not too big. It's got a bit of grass and a bit of woods. Countless spots in which to hide a brightly colored egg.

The best part though? It has a nice, safe fence encapsulating it all so that I don't have to constantly worry about little ones escaping into the great beyond.

 

This year,  we took some time to actually hide many of the eggs instead of just tossing them willy nilly all over the yard. This is yet another consequence of the children growing older. I thought that perhaps it would make the event last a little longer.

But I forgot to factor in the energy level of the tykes-which under normal circumstances is quite high, 

but add in the excitement of a play date and the promise of sugar, and you get kids on hyper speed.

 Before I knew it, the little Gremlins had found all the eggs and hoarded them off to their secret lair for inspection.

 Luckily, they seemed quite pleased with their haul...

if the evidence left behind is any indication that is.

 Best Easter Playdate Ever! Part II: All Fun & Games coming soon to a MellonBlog near you.

Six of One, Half Dozen of the Other

My husband is good at many things. Really, he is. Examples? You want examples? I’ll give you examples:

• He manages all of the annoying household maintenance chores like changing the filters, winterizing the sprinklers, and getting the cars serviced with ease. At any one time, he’s keeping 35 different plates spinning without ever even breaking a sweat. Nothing about tedious paper work or red tape stresses him out: not the mountain of forms from the 6 houses we’ve owned, not the tangled insurance mess that being self-employed brings, not even when the IRS sent a letter telling us we were being audited. Cool as a cucumber through it all.  
• He can identify a song in 5 notes or less. He’d totally be the Ken Jennings of Name That Tune if it were still on. 
• He has the nickname of Google Andy because he always seems to know the answer to random questions. Those few times that he doesn’t know the answer off hand, he can find it faster than anyone I know. Sometimes when I’m bored, I’ll play a game where I try to tell him about some news item before he has a chance to read it himself. I always lose.
• Travel arrangements are his specialty. He has itineraries that would put the POTUS to shame. Canceled flight? No problem, Drew will have us on another one before the other passengers have even realized that the party’s over.
• He’s a very good driver. But don’t tell him I said that. Yes, he drives too fast, but he’s got good enough reflexes to pull it off. So far anyway. He even knows how to use his mirrors properly which as you know is something that I find to be very challenging. Plus, he never gets lost. Even in strange cities with odd traffic patterns—he somehow arrives at his intended destination with nary a detour. I don’t understand it though I think it might have something to do with him having a GPS embedded in his brain. Perhaps the most compelling of all: he drives “The Bus” as I call his extra-long SUV and never seems frazzled about parking it. Though it pains me to admit it, he does have the gift of drive.

There’s more, but I’ll save those for when I need to do a little damage control. My point in all of this is to show that what I’m about to tell you isn’t just a nagging wife thing: it’s an objective statement of fact. Because for as much as my husband excels at those bullet-pointed above items, there is one skill that completely evades him: photography. I kid you not, in this one area, he is truly inferior. But don’t take my word for it. Let the evidence speak for itself.
As you probably know, we hosted an Easter Egg Hunt for Amaya’s friends on Sunday. I handed the camera off to Andy to follow Amaya around the yard as she gathered her prizes in her bucket.  I should have known better. This was the first frame:

Yea.
The kids probably spent 15 minutes running all over our yard looking for colored ovoids. Do you know how many pictures he took of this? 13. 13! I can take that many in a single minute. I mean does the man think that he has to pay for every individual photo he takes?  We’re not using Polaroid or Disney Photo Pass here Drew. 
Ok, so if he’d gotten 13 really great shots, I’d shut up. But that’s far from the case since right off the bat, 5 were easily eliminated from the possible “great shots” category . But still, 8 really good pictures would make me happy. But umm…would this qualify as a good shot?   Or this?

Nope. 3 down, 5 to go. Odds aren’t looking so great.

Still looking for the money shot…

Face! We’ve got a Face!  But when looking at this photo, my eyes are drawn to my duck feet and the big brother with his back to the world. Definitely not frame worthy—not that I bother with frames, but you get my meaning, right?
At last! A half decent picture of the girl in her Easter dress and Converse kicks.  We’ll talk later about her fashion foibles as I think that will probably need an entire post to itself. Or 3.

After viewing the evidence, I think it can be concluded that Snapshots + Drew = FAIL. But since I’m too cheap to pay for a travel agent and have no desire to visit Jiffy Lube anytime soon, I’ll go ahead and give him a pass on this one colossal deficiency. I just hope he remembers the benevolence I’ve shown when my Anthropologie order arrives tomorrow.

A Tale of Two Bunnies

 

There once was a boy who loved his two Easter Bunnies very much. He’d hug on them and squeeze on them and whisper sweet nothings in their big floppy ears.

Then one day the boy found himself with a baby sister who wasn’t such a baby anymore. She wanted to love on the bunnies, too. But the boy wasn’t really interested in sharing his lovies with this walking, talking annoyance of a sister. 

The little sister really wanted a bunny to love though. So she offered to trade a lizard for a single bunny to hug. She felt it was a very fair and equitable trade.

The boy however wasn’t as sure that it was a worthy exchange. After all, that bunny had a basket full of eggs. But the sister was so persistent that the boy eventually relented.

As little sister dragged her prize away, the boy realized he’d been bamboozled! The lizard was hard plastic and not very huggable at all.

Chagrinned, the boy scooted off into the sunset in search of a new somebunny to love.

The End