One day I will be able to take stellar photographs. But these will have to do for now. However, I don't need perfect photos to see how beautiful they are and to know what great girls they are.
Payton didn't want to use her regular Easter basket. She wanted to use that purple one she caught at a Mardi Gras parade. She had been holding on to it for almost two months and was so happy to finally use it. There is no shortage of candy at our house now. And the Easter Bunny was nice enough to bring new toothbrushes to go with all that candy.
A few scraped knees and elbows later, the kids had found all the eggs and started checking out the loot. We had a nice laid back afternoon. Tammy had cooked quite a spread with quessadillas, enchiladas, tacos, chips and salsa, and strawberry shortcake. After we were all totally stuffed, we headed outside to dye eggs. Even though it makes a huge mess and everyone ends up with multi-colored fingers, I love doing this with the kids. No matter how old they get, or how many years we have done this, they still get so excited to see the eggs change colors.
Payton was the only one who couldn't wait to break open one of those bad boys and eat it. The others are still sitting in my fridge untouched. I think I will be making some deviled eggs today.
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.
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.
Hayden finally lost her first tooth last Thursday. My baby is growing up. She has spent the last couple of weeks trying to wiggle it out. And in her words, it finally "just fell out." But of course, the best part was finding that $5 bill under her pillow the next morning. She is already hoping for another tooth to come out because she is saving her money to buy another Webkinz. 
Yes that is the church parking lot. I don't know if you can tell from the video, but they were taking this very seriously. In fact, Hayden informed me that she wants to be a model when she grows up. Too bad she's got the big-girl genes.
