our easter in pictures

night dying

another easter tradition is dying eggs with our friends. in an attempt to channel our inner martha, we read up on and watched all the tutorials she gave for this year's eggs. armed with a cricut and several martha punches and some vinyl, we thought we were ready. while the guys grilled and the kids played, we punched and cut and prepared for the event. once everyone was fed, we finally began. by now, it was almost dark, but anyone with kids knows some activities are best done outside so we pushed through.

we had almost three dozen.

we had each vinyled up 10 or so and each participating child had 4.

each child immediately dropped their eggs in a dye cup. they took about 2.5 seconds to finish dying all their eggs.

then, they were more than willing to help the mommies with their eggs.

meanwhile, this little guy was trying to climb into the koi pond. luckily, our husbands wrangled the youngest two or this little guy would have been swimming with the fishes, literally. spencer sat in her high chair nibbling away at dinner quiet as a mouse. it got so dark, we had to get a flash light to see what color we were dying our eggs. when we flashed it on spencer to see what she was doing, she was covered in mosquitos. that's when we headed in.

where did we go wrong or why don't our eggs look like martha's:

*instead of a beautiful studio full of all the things you may or may not need to dye eggs, we were scrambling to get everything outside and within our range of use.

*instead of incredibly gifted artisans with degrees from top notch art schools as assistants, we had 5 incredibly cute helpers who all attend preschool, though some of them are quite crafty themselves.

*instead of preparing for this project months ago using regular working days to practice and perfect the ideas before publishing them, we texted about our plan briefly 24 hours before putting it to use and began preparation less than an hour before the sun went down.

martha, we got nothin' on you because these two girls will never be that prepared. we just don't function like that. we are last-minute, up-til-the-wee-hours, pull-it-off kinda girls.

and, well, that works for us.

sometimes.

the hunt

like most holidays, we have several traditions we like to do each easter. one that we have done for the last few years is the family egg hunt at the botanic gardens. this year it was the day before easter just like every other egg hunt.

waiting can be so hard . . .

last year, our experience was horrible. this year, i was determined to be on time so we wouldn't have the same problem. in actuality, we were early (i know, can you believe it?) so, after a few activities, we went to wait at the designated area for our age egg hunt (3-5 year olds). we started to worry when the people next to us broke the tape keeping everyone out of the hunt area so they would have an advantage (i am not kidding). we heard people strategizing about where to go and how to get the most eggs. (really?) then, they finally sounded the horn and right out of the gate, carter tripped and fell in the mud. (it had been raining for days.) just like anyone else, we become suddenly competitive and start yelling at her to get up and go when we see this . . .

bless his heart! he can't take the stress. it happens every year. but, for some reason, they will allow one parent to accompany a child in this age group, so i run out to assist him. remember, my competitive nature has reared it's head and i proceed to drag miller to every area i can see eggs just in time for someone else to snatch them up! along the way, i see adults grabbing eggs and dropping them in their kid's baskets and i even saw one woman with at least 100 eggs being held in her shirt like a sling. (fyi, this egg hunt might have lasted all of two minutes and the children participating were supposed to be 3-5.)

sweet girl still searching for more eggs

assessing the damage to the knee

the walk of shame, i mean honor 

because we did not cheat for the 9 and 11 eggs they collected.

after a brief discussion about why we still follow the rules when many choose not to, we headed for pictures with the easter bunny. poor spencer, she didn't even see it coming . . .

followed by her "i-am-really-beside-myself-and-you-don't-seem-to-care" face

a quick race to the big tree on our way to daffodil hill

my sweet girls in the beautiful white daffodils

and, miller marching through the dead ones, but i really dig the way josh framed it. 

after daffodil hill, the kids had their faces painted with stencils. (really? a stencil. it was horrible. they couldn't find anyone who had enough talent to paint simple spring images on kids' cheeks.) and, they ran out of water- the only thing miller and i wanted to drink. so, josh bought me a diet coke. it didn't taste right, so i commented, "this diet coke taste like . . . " and josh chimed in " . . . disappointment." 

we couldn't take any more, so we headed out early, picked up some sonic happy hour treats and headed home for another holiday tradition that evening. 

from socks to pigtails

what do they say about march? in like a lion, out like a lamb . . . or is it in like a lamb, out like a lion? 

i have no idea, but if you were talking about our march, it would be crazy.

while i have a lot of catching up to do, i will begin with a few random pictures of our every day.

sometimes when my kids are playing at my parents' house, they will take a bath because everything is better at meme and papaw's house. my mom started curling carter's hair with sponge rollers occasionally and she loved it. one night after a bath at home, she requested i curl her hair. because i do not own a curler of any kind, i rocked it old school with socks. josh was so confused. having come from a house full of boys, he had no idea why i would use socks. i told him he was lucky we didn't have frozen orange juice cans or i would have used those. do they even make those anymore??

on a lazy monday, dr. carter requested i see her for an appointment.

it's a good thing i took her up on the suggested appointment as i had an ear infection and needed a shot.

(why do all pretend doctor visits end in a shot? i know the majority of our real appointments don't.)

she loves making graphs and charts.

look at those chubby baby thighs

playing on the playground at preschool during spring break

(i know, we can't stay away.)

and, for the first time, 

piggies!!

josh suggested we see if spencer's hair would go in pigtails. i couldn't believe it was already long enough.

oh. my. goodness!

we ♥ disney

blogging disney is difficult. maybe that is why i know a few blogs that stopped being updated after attempting to blog a disney trip. i am relieved this trip is documented and ready to move on. because not everything seemed to fit somewhere, here are a few more random disney facts:

miller thinks we took a wrong turn on our way to the beach and that is how we ended up at disney world.

my kids are obsessed with peter pan. obsessed.

randomly, when we are driving, carter or miller will throw their hands up and act like they are on a roller coaster. weeeeee!

because many of you asked, yes, i did make the mickey shirts from day 1 and the guitar shirt from day 4.

i relished in taking a not-yet-walking 13 month old to disney. she was content in the stroller and my sling when we had to stroller park, which was often.

even my dad was impressed with the disney experience.

i really want to go back. soon. like they say, it is the happiest place on earth.

"just keep swimming, just keep swimming . . . "

downtown disney

because we didn't go to sea world, we had an extra day with nothing to do. we had planned to do downtown disney one night, but instead we spent a very lazy last day there just enjoying the beautiful weather and riding out the disney happiness high.

after lunch at t.rex, we played at the lego store:

and played . . .

then, we headed into the world of disney to pick up some souvenirs and play . . .

poor miller, he has so many years left to endure this kind of stuff

spencer popped herself in the eye with the elastic strap on her hat and made her i am beside myself face

once all was right with the world, we got the obligatory hat picture

and then enjoyed mickey bars (another mandated disney activity)

but, one of us appeared to not enjoy a mickey bar, nor did she enjoy watching everyone else with theirs

any day that ends like this is a good day!

favorites:
carter: mickey bar
miller: t rex restaurant
spencer: well, it definitely wasn't the mickey bar, now was it?