Easter party #1

On Saturday, we went with our friends the Courtneys to an Easter extravaganza at the fairgrounds. It was hosted by their old church but was free and open to the public. They had inflateables, a firetruck, McGruff, facepainting, a band, egg hunt, etc. We had to stand in line to get in because you had to register and get armbands for the kids to designate which age group they were supposed to hunt eggs with. (More on that in a minute.) After that, the lines got progressively longer at each thing. The weather was great and the kids were being good, so after standing in line for the picture with the Easter Bunny, we stood in line for face painting. Most of the booths were run by the teenagers from the church. Hayden wanted to be painted like a cat. And the girl painting her face said she couldn't do a cat, she could only do a bunny. In my nice mommy voice, I was like, "how about you paint her nose and give her some whiskers?" She said, yeah I can do that. That's a bunny. Of course Hayden keeps telling me she wants to be a cat. So I have to convince the four year old and the 14 yr old that it can be a cat or a bunny. Hayden got her nose and whiskers and proudly showed off her cat face.

After the face painting, we decided to stand in line at the inflateable obstacle course. Thirty minutes later we get to the front of the line and were told they were shutting down for a little bit so it could reinflate. When the teenagers running the thing realized we weren't leaving, they were a little quicker about getting it inflated. After that line, we stood in line for the giant slide. Thankfully, the dads were already holding a place for us. But has we get closer to the front, Tammy and I realize that there are tons of kids cutting in line. So we go up to the front, and using my nice mommy voice again, I ask the kid running it if he could please watch for the kids cutting in line. He just gave me this glazed over look. So I parked my big butt at the front of that line and put the smack down on any kid trying to cut. The worst part was the parents encouraging their kids to do it. There were some parents that thought I worked there and tried to tell me there were two lines. I, in the most non-confrontational way I could, said, um no their isn't and the end of the line is back there (as I point to the other side of the field.) The dads and kids got back in line to go a second time and Bryan said the line was moving much faster since I was "helping" at the front of the line. I am of the opinion that you should just act like you know what you are doing and people don't ask questions.

They finally had the Easter egg hunt/scramble/grab. The areas were roped of by age groups and eggs were just scattered everywhere. While everyone was waiting around, some kid thought it would be funny to yell go before it was time. So all these kids started running onto the field and it was all over from there. I did feel bad for the kids who missed out.

At this point they hadn't put the eggs out for Taylor's age group. So when it was time for her, all the kids who had missed out, and all the kids who had already hunted eggs came over to that area. It was total chaos.

It reminded me of Walmart the day after Thanksgiving.

This was the first year that this church did this, so they didn't know how many people to expect or how everything was going to turn out. The kids did have a really good time, with minimal whining and the weather was absolutley perfect. So overall, we had a pretty good time.