Happy Easter!

There is something about Easter that makes me get so excited. Of course, celebrating our Lord and his promise to us is most important but it's also the newness of the season, the welcoming of spring and sun and all things tradition. I love traditions and creating these memories for my kids that they will (hopefully) cherish when they get older.

One of our traditions is to go down to Grandma and Grandpa Vance's house the day before Easter for an egg hunt and to color Easter eggs. We learned pretty early on that public large event type egg hunts are not for us. To spend 30 minutes holding back your child who so desperately wants to grab an egg and then shout, "go! go! go!" at them as a stampede of small children and pushy parents knock them down and go home with 2 eggs just isn't our idea of a fun time. Our kids like to take their time hunting, open up each egg and celebrate what's inside. So, an at home egg hunt is perfect for us. Plus, we color code the eggs so each kid knows what to hunt for and fill them with little treasures like money and trail mix!

 This big pink egg has M&Ms inside. Let's just say she was more than a little excited to see some candy. I think the entire city of Edgewood heard her scream!

 Simon was content with his loot of Cheerios in his special eggs. Simply boy.....at least this year.

 Next we went inside to hunt for their Easter bags. This was a new tradition to me when I joined the Vance family. Matt's mom hides a small gift in the house for the kids to find. Uncle Adam brought gifts too so the kids had lots of fun new things to play with!

 Simon's wasn't really hiding but he did have to work to go get it! This boy is now crawling so fast!

 Then the egg dyeing. I can remember a few years ago where we could only do this outside because it would turn into a colored liquid mess and only last a few minutes. This year the kids sat at the table for over an hour while Lucy kept experimenting with her eggs and changing the colors over and over again. So fun!

 And Simon worked on standing. He's not close to walking quite yet but he sure loves to be up on his feet and see the world from another view. He's also obsessed with Grandpa Tom and gets a big grin on his face whenever he's around.

 We drove home that night and the Easter bunny got to work to leave out baskets for the kids for Easter morning. I don't really make a big deal about the Easter bunny but I guess the kids have been chatting with friends at school because they kept asking how the bunny would know where to put baskets and eggs. So, I had to remember to play along and not just tell them where I bought their books! Oops!

 These 2 brothers are just amazing. I love their bond and love for one another. Carter is just a good big brother to Simon and watches over him all the time.

 But, big brother hugs only last so long. It was time to find his basket. He was pretty darn excited to see the table downstairs.

 A new book, a new watch, gardening gloves, sidewalk chalk and a chocolate bunny!

 Simon got a new car, a new hat (which stayed on for about 3.5 seconds) and eggs filled with fruit!

 And Lucy got a new book, sidewalk chalk, gardening gloves, pink sunglasses and a chocolate bunny. Fun and simple!

 All dressed up for church!

 Could they be any cuter?! The kids have learned now that I require a certain number of pictures on special holidays and just smile to get it over with. But really, they are so cute!

 After church we came home and got ready for Uncle Matt and Aunt Joy to come over for Easter lunch and another egg hunt. Because the weather was rainy and cold we had to do it inside, but the kids still had fun.

And now the candy holidays are over until Halloween (thank the Lord!). It was a great weekend celebrating family and tradition and truly remembering what a gift God has given us. Happy Easter!

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a season of busy.

I really shouldn't title this post a "season" because I'm starting to discover that this type of busy might just become the norm for the next few years. So, I guess it's a long season of busy! A good busy. But, I am so glad I have alert reminders set on my phone for every single activity we have so I don't forget. It's not just busy with activities right now....that will begin next month. First, we tackle more house projects! Matt and his dad worked tirelessly on our house when we first bought it, spending countless hours working on every room of the house. We moved it, got settled and left little projects to be completed as time went on. Well, that time is now! With an active, moving baby we needed to check some more things off our list to keep him safe and keep our things organized. And that's exactly what Matt did all weekend long. 

I was on kid duty. First up....feeding this little one. He is now so happy to be eating finger foods and prefers them over any spoon fed option. It means a lot more mess but also so fun to watch.

 And then, stairs! Oh my goodness, this little one seems to be fearless. Check out the look on his face....you know he's saying, "Come on mom, watch this!" And off he went. He still likes to rock back and forth when climbing so someone has to be right behind him so he doesn't fall backwards but he's getting pretty good (and fast) at going up. Now we are determined to teach him how to go down.

 And standing. All day long he's pulling himself up to stand and get a better view of the world. Every phase is new and different with each child and this one is pretty darn fun right now.

Last week Carter finally had his science fair where he got to bring his board with his results to school to show off his experiment. I couldn't believe how many other kids participated. The room was packed! It was actually really awesome to see how creative some kids got with their projects and how many were clearly done by the student and not the parent. Carter had 2 options, to either stand by his board and wait for people to come around and check it out or sign up to present his experiment to a small group of adults in a private room. I thought for sure he wouldn't want to present. After all, he was one of the youngest kids there and there were so many other fun things to do and see. But, he said he was feeling brave and wanted to sign up! So he went up on stage, set up his board and told everyone all about it. Proud mom moment right there (well, proud when I watched the video Matt took since I stayed out of the room with a talkative baby). He already has ideas for what he'll do next year too. Love this scientist and his curious mind!

 This was the view of the few hundred people who came out to the science fair, such a fun night!

 Okay, back to house projects. To let Matt and his Dad have a productive day at the house I took the kids up to the beach house with Grandma Kathy. It was a beautiful warm day and since we hadn't been up for several months the kids loved to be back. Snack time outside, checking out the view with their binoculars and a trip to the beach and park. Simon loved exploring too since the last time we were there he was a teeny baby.

 And, after a long day of work at home, we now have new cabinets in our laundry room!! We still need to put hardware on but it looks so good and really opens up the space, plus it provides a ton of storage! Matt also put up new lights, cleaned out the crawl space, put new house numbers on the house, touched up paint throughout the entire house, cleaned out the garage, continued prepping the backyard for the play structure, made 4 trips to the hardware store and installed new thermostats. Whew! Talk about busy. This run-down foreclosed house is slowly becoming our home and we are both really happy here. It might not have been the house we envisioned for ourselves when house hunting but it's turned into a place that feels just right for our family.

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coloring, swimming and 3 cute kids.

What's going on this week? Coloring. Lots and lots and lots of coloring. Carter and Lucy have both been sitting at our craft table, kitchen table or just standing in the kitchen using the countertop to spread out their crayons, markers and colored pencils and just coloring away. Every day they usually make a picture for at least 3 of their friends, one for me and another for a grandma/teacher/neighbor/dog. It's been fun to see them improve their coloring skills, although I must admit, the stack of coloring pages littering the craft table is getting a little overwhelming. And of course if I ever try to recycle some a mountain of tears will surely ensue.

 Lucy is still taking swim lessons and doing so well. It's kind of become our Friday morning tradition all year to drop Carter off at school and head over to the aquatic center. Last week Carter had a day off from school for conferences so instead of making him sit and watch her swim lesson I had the great idea of taking all 3 kids swimming by myself! I must say they all were amazing and it was so much fun to let Simon experience the pool for the first time. Since I was alone there aren't any pictures of him (or the other two kids) actually swimming in the water but I thought this shot of them sitting on a wet, dirty locker room floor would be better than nothing.

 I must say, though. Getting 3 kids out of the pool, dried off, redressed and then getting myself redressed is no easy feat. Why must it be so hard?!? Between wet towels, swim trunks that are getting stuck, a curious crawling baby, snacks that want to be eaten, attempting to maintain just a bit of privacy and collecting our 2 huge bags of stuff I was exhausted when we got back to the car! Worth it though, such a fun morning.

 Later in the day I had Carter finish up his science experiment for the upcoming school science fair. He chose to do a gummy bear experiment to see what would happen if we put a gummy bear in water versus baking soda. I was so proud of him and how he really learned each step of the scientific method. It's fun to hear him use the word "hypothesis" correctly in other conversations throughout the day too! Plus, eating the extra gummy bears is kinda fun. Being the science nerd that I am I loved helping him through this. Being the perfectionist that I am, I cringed when he wanted to color a rainbow and gummy bear man on his board but knew this was important to him. My goal was for him to really own this project and not present something that clearly looked like a parent did all the work. So he cut, colored, wrote and glued the whole board together! More pics to come once he actually presents it at school.

 This little one is keeping me on my toes. His new favorite things to crawl to? The wall heaters and electrical outlets. He's quickly mastered how to take out the outlet covers and attempt to put his teeny little fingers in the holes. Goodness Simon! I thought a laundry basket would help me contain him one morning and it worked, for a few minutes at least.

 And some exciting news! We are (slowly) transforming the backyard to get it ready for summer! Taking down more trees and making room for the new play structure. I can't wait to get it set up (who am I kidding....for Matt and a few of his friends to build the thing) so the kids can be outside and get more energy out. Right now climbing trees and digging in dirt is their activity of choice. They love it, but swings/slides/playhouse/sandbox will be pretty fun too!

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