Easter Festivities - Or, This Post Will Make You Feel Better About Yourself As A Mom

You ever read blogs where Mama has half a dozen or so kids in matching outfits (that she either made herself of bought from one of those catalogs you can't afford to look at), and she's made some amazing meal/craft/accomplishment?

If you're anything like me, you look at that blog and think, "Why can't I get it together enough to be like that?"

This post is for you.

Brianna decided to make a cake for Easter.

I'm ashamed to admit that I helped her frost the thing.

And I found her an opened pack of stale nasty sugar thingies to stick on the side.

Martha Stewart would be horrified, I'm sure.

This, friends, is multitasking.  

Jack is working on a phonics program on my iPad (review coming soon!) while I'm filling Easter eggs.  

Even though we got all 88 eggs filled prior to Easter, we ended up NOT doing an egg hunt on Sunday. 

Bri helped me fill the eggs.

You see it rained all night Saturday, and somehow, I just couldn't bring myself to send the babies out...

...in their coordinating WHITE outfits, into the muddy back yard.

 

So I told them they could make Shmeeps instead, and we'd do the egg hunt later.

What are Shmeeps?  

They're MESSY.

It's s'mores made from Peeps.  

Graham crackers, Peeps, Hershey's chocolate, and smiles.

And yes, I found marshmallow in her hair the next morning.  

See Gogo's little paw on the left.  Miss that boy.

So, let's see...  No Egg Hunt, pitiful looking cake that was eaten the day BEFORE Easter, messy zero nutrition snack...

Surely you at least got some great FAMILY PICTURES, right?

Well, I got these cuties together.  

But this one immediately came home and stripped off anything looking remotely dressy.

And Eli was the only other one willing to be photographed at all.

So, no to the lovely, coordinated family photos.

Hey, she's going to find the pink egg!

I finally decided to have the Egg Hunt (the Saturday after Easter).

Look up!

Fortunately, the kids are good sports.

I guess not, eh?  (Hannah found it.)

I sent everyone into Annaliese's room while I hid the eggs.

I ended up with a lot of butt shots of the actual hunt.

Behind the a/c unit is a yellow fire hydrant.  It's Paul's.  (Pretend that it's normal to own your own fire hydrant, okay?)  We had it at the old house, too.  It's become a bit of a tradition to hide an egg in the hydrant.  Looks like Josiah found it this year.

Searching high and low.

I think they had fun, regardless of the date on the calendar.

Sam counting.  "Do I have 12 yet?"

We'd given Sam a hard time about his egg hunt issues last week, so when he saw me about to caption this pic, he said, "Mom!  Don't write about me!"  

Sorry, cute boy.  

Annaliese says being tall has it's advantages.  

HALF of my kids are currently taller than I am.

(I went to the doc last week, and I was only 5'5" with shoes on!  I used to be 5'6" barefoot.)

Eli blends with the foliage.

He and the boys down the street have been shooting each other with Nerf guns now that the weather is warming up, so he's often in camo these days.

At the end, I remembered that I'd hidden one in a tree, so Bri retrieved it.

This will have to do for a group shot.  

Sam ended up with the most chocolate.

Josiah got a whole bottle full of Nerds jelly beans through trades.

Which are very yummy, according to the general consensus.

I like the pink ones, myself.

Serious bartering happened here this morning.

Ah, the life skills learned in a big family.

So there you have it.  Sure, there was ham and pineapple and rolls served on Easter Sunday, but it wasn't a big to do with extended family (although I wish it could have been), nor was it eaten of china and linen.  Oh well.

I got as far as asking Brianna to hard boil some eggs, but they didn't get marked, and we never got around to dyeing them, so there have been some interesting events involving eggs people thought were boiled being raw, and eggs people thought were raw being hard boiled.  In the end, I feel like I did the best I could at all the fluff that goes along with the holiday, all things considered.  And I'm choosing to be okay with that.

But I'm going to start working on Christmas in August.
(Remind me, okay?)

Coordinating picture outfits.  Making sure all the boys have dress pants and shoes that fit.
Surely, I should be able to accomplish that in 4 months time, right?


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