Backyard "Campout"

The Invitation:

Homemade Binoculars:

Looking for Little Critters:

Making bags to keep the critters and all the goodies yet to come:

"Packing for Camp" Relay Race:

Fishing (strange, the foam fish were carrying hot chocolate and glow sticks):

Playing Red Rover:

Eating Dinner in the Tent:

The Birthday Cake:

Eating the Cake (aka. Roasting Marshmallows):

Happy 6th Birthday, Corbin!

There's more?

Yes, our Easter was so crazy exciting that I have hundreds of pictures (or maybe I'm just a little snap happy), literally, I had 371 pictures of our Easter weekend activities. Obviously I already posted a ton, but here are a few more of my favs from our lunch at the park on Easter Sunday.

Easter fun

Yeah, sorry. The title is not any more creative than that. I have to get this post done now that it has been a week, and it is late and I always have SO many more things I want to post. So this is the obligatory, I-want-to-have-a-record-of-this post.

Easter was perfect this year. I already posted all the egg-citement, and I may have to do another post with all our fun park pictures, so here is the Easter Bunny etc. stuff, so that someday my boys will see that we did have traditions and they will know how much their mommy loved them. And I am sure that when they have kids they will want to know what their favorite Easter toy was back in 2009 . . .

The boys decided they had to try out the Easter Bunny's carrots before bed.

Ready for the Easter Bunny
Corbin's Basket.

I think the Easter Bunny forgot that he used to hide the baskets, but it turned out okay. The boys were so excited about finding the hidden eggs at first, that they didn't even stop to notice the basket of goodies!

Cody's

Colton's basket. (isn't it adorable!)

The favorite of the morning was definitely the Ben 10 things that dissolve and produce little aliens. Cool.

HAPPY EASTER!

What is this obsession with eggs?

Last Saturday, we went out in the freezing rain so that each of our kids could collect four plastic eggs with treats and the chance to win other prizes, including a new bike. Are we crazy? Maybe, but apparently so our dozens of other parents, because the freezing drizzle didn't seem to lessen the crowds. Oh well, it was short and sweet and the boys had fun. Besides, after they had been talking about for three days, how can you tell them "we're not going, let's just sit at home and be warm."

Those little girls have GOT to be freezing!

It didn't take long for the kids to get to the eggs and get their alloted 4, yet they love it! (that is Corbin's school in the background - only 2 years old. Nice, eh?)

Cody was already munching on his treats by the time we found him over in the 3-4yr old section.

After the egg hunt, we had to come home and dye eggs for the Easter Bunny to hide. All I can say is good thing they are hard-boiled, whoever came up with that had to have been a mother. Cody finally figured it out after the first two had to be decoratively wrapped in foil if we wanted the Bunny to be able to hide them intact. And since I didn't think ahead and couldn't find any vinegar, I had to squeeze out every last drop of my lemon and lime juice to get the colors to dissolve. Oh well, once again, it was worth it, they loved it.

Easter morning was full of fun egg finding. It wasn't the mayhem and crazy running around I expected, although they did collect several eggs before they even remembered that the Bunny had brought them baskets of presents too. Mostly, it went like this - find an egg, check out its contents, eat it if mom is not looking. The boys also decided that they love to eat the hard-boiled eggs, somehow they are so much better when they came out of a colored shell.

In the afternoon was more egg mania. We had lunch at the park with some friends and of course, there had to be an egg hunt for the kiddies. Unlike the 4 egg quota from the previous day, they were seriously loaded after this one (and the candy was better too, I had to test it to make sure it was good). And thankfully, it was a much warmer day.

The kids and their loot.

We were supposed to go to another egg hunt on Saturday with our neighbors, but since it was rained out, we did it Monday evening. As if we needed more eggs, but again, its one of those things - when you have a five year old who knows whats going on when, you can't just skip it anymore.

Cody waiting for the egg rush to begin.

Next thing I know . . . Don't know how he's going to collect eggs like that.

Guess he figured it out

Corbin was happy with his findings! (Don't you just love those missing tooth smiles!)

So our weekend was all about eggs, eggs, eggs . . . I have no clue where or how this tradition came to be, but they love it, so we do it!

Favorite One-liners from Cody

(1)

What the heck is wrong with you Mom?

(2)

I can't go to bed, I have to do my homework. (yeah, he just turned 3)

(3)

(heading out the front door) I have to go, my friends want me, they all want me.

(4)
Cody: Mommies don't be mad, they be sad. Only Daddies be mad.

Mom: Do you want Daddy to come here and get mad at you?

Cody: If Daddy was here I wouldn't do bad things.

Spring? Break

The first day of spring break, this is what we woke up to . . .

The boys didn't seem to mind too much - guess they don't know how spring break is "supposed" to be. We did have fun playing in the snow and making snow ice cream one last time this year.