{April} 10 on 10: Easter

For this month's 10 on 10 challenge, I'm sharing some pictures from Easter.

These are the little things that made it feel like Easter to me. Egg dying, egg hunts, flowers, bunnies, plastic eggs, fancy decorated eggs, the table set for ham, lamb and other yummy things...

My mom's old hand-painted eggs that were made by a family friend before she was born. Gorgeous and extremely fragile!

Our first experience dying eggs ourselves. We attempted to marble dye them by
adding oil to the dye, but ours didn't turn out like the picture on the box...

The boys, however, were very proud of their creations!

These are not hard-boiled eggs. My plan is to blow them out and save them for decoration next year.

I love how my doodle eggs turned out! I just blew them out and dried them really well, then went to town on them with a sharpie, with no real plan at all. The blue one I dunked in the dye while I tried to plug the holes at the ends with my fingers.

Simple floral centerpieces on our Easter tablescape.

This little guy says "Somebunny loves you."

This petunia had three eggs hidden in it. Only this one was found without help. Sneaky bunny :)

No one found this one either, even though I was taking a picture of it.

Sweet hands holding yummy treats. Lorelai loved opening up each egg, dumping out the treats, then putting them all back.

I hope to have the rest of the Easter pictures posted by the end of the week. Unfortunately I'm not happy with how a lot of them turned out, so it looks I might have to do some serious editing to try and salvage some of them. I was definitely off my game with the photography this time, bummer!

2nd annual Easter Egg Treasure Hunt

Happy Easter! We had a fabulous day of fun, family and food. I have yet to sort through all of my pictures, so hopefully I'll have a post with some of them tomorrow. In the meantime, I wanted to share our egg hunt fun from Sunday morning.

Since it was such a big hit last year, the Easter Bunny was back with another treasure hunt. This year she left a note on the back of the boys' bedroom door in the hopes that they would see it when they woke up and turned the lights on to play. Note to the Easter Bunny: move the note back to a way more obvious place. Apparently Aidan and Logan pay no attention to the back of their door. It took them a good 30 minutes to notice it, and they each went in and out of their room TWICE before that. Geez!

Once they finally found it, here's what they saw:

Good Morning, AIDAN and LOGAN!

Are you ready for an Easter Egg Treasure Hunt? Well get to hoppin'!

Yay, it’s rhyme time!

“Where's the treasure?” you may ask.
You must find it, that’s the task!
Is it here? Is it there?
You must look everywhere!

Look for your first clue in the place where we put all the dishes to make them clean. Don't go alone, work as a team ☺

Here are the clues the Easter Bunny came up with all on her own, hidden in plastic eggs throughout the house (the first was in the dishwasher):

Clue #1: When you sit here for shows, don’t be a grouch. Your next clue is on the __ __ __ __ __.

Clue #2: Scrub-a-dub-dub, find your next clue in the __ __ __.

Clue #3: Don’t fall off while you’re sleeping and bump your head, find your next clue under Aidan’s __ __ __.

Clue #4: Look for Lego Star Wars and what do you see? Find your next clue beside the __ __ __.

Clue #5: Where do you eat, if you’re hungry and able? Look for your next clue on the dining room __ __ __ __ __.

Clue #6: I hope this hunt has put you in a good mood! Your next clue is where we store our cold __ __ __ __.

Clue #7: Dirty shirts can be blue, red or green. Find your next clue in the washing __ __ __ __ __ __ __.

Clue #8: Look around and you won’t find a Woset, you’ll find your treasure in Mommy and Daddy’s __ __ __ __ __ __.


The boys loved it! They were so excited about each clue that instead of going straight from one location to another, they brought each clue back up to show us. I loved being able to witness their excitement as they figured out each clue. They figured out most clues without any trouble. But they were both stumped for a while on clue 6, when they couldn't figure out that food rhymed with mood, which meant the fridge. I think they were just trying to think of a place in the house that rhymed with mood, so Adam and I had to help a bit. Aidan also got oddly stumped by clue 4, but Logan knew right away to look next to the Wii. Logan magically appeared with the egg while Aidan was still trying to figure it out.

Here's the treasure they found:

The boys got Angry Birds shirts, Little Debbie cakes, gummies and Cadbury mini eggs. Lorelai got shoes, a skirt, bows and clips, and they all got Jelly Bellies galore in their plastic eggs.

Obviously they loved the treats, and between three egg hunts they now have enough candy to feed an elephant (or me and my huge sweet tooth, whichever). Logan even went through all of Lorelai's eggs (and put them all back like no one would notice) before she woke up. Of course the one day she picks to sleep in just happens to be the day we want her awake, so we actually had to go in a wake her up at 8 to join in the fun.

She was groggy and confused at first, but before I knew it, she had shoved a handful of Jelly Bellies in her mouth which perked her right up (that's my girl)! And BTW, the boys totally agree with me that Cadbury mini eggs are the bomb diggity.

The rest of the day was spent dying eggs, folding bunny napkins, lounging, cleaning up, making messes, having fun with Easter grass, more cleaning, getting ready to host dinner for 13 people, doing more egg hiding and hunting, eating, hanging out, and just generally having a blast. Yay Easter!

iPhone photo dump {week 12}

Highlights:

• Cadbury mini eggs. OMG how are they so much more yummy than regular chocolate? (And why didn't I Instagram them like I do everything else?? Ha!)
• Movie day at work! Once a quarter, we get treated to a movie on a Friday afternoon. Working with mostly all guys, we've seen some movies that I would not have picked on my own (ahem...Tron, Thor, Cowboys and Aliens, Immortals, etc.). But this time we got to see Hunger Games, so that makes two Fridays in a row that I've gone to see Hunger Games during work. Nice.
• Mostly gorgeous weather meant several walks outside.
• The kids had a 4 day week, so lollipop day was on Thursday and they got good quality time at home with Daddy on Friday.
• Logan got his preschool cap and gown pictures taken on Wednesday. Only two months until preschool graduation, and three months until he starts Kindergarten!

Lowlights:

• Adam's been in pain since he took a ball in the chest during a soccer game a few weeks ago, and it kept getting worse instead of better. He finally went to the doctor on Thursday fearing his rib was cracked. Fortunately it's not cracked, but it's badly bruised, so he's on anti-inflammatory meds so he can hopefully move and breathe without pain soon.
• During a walk this week, Aidan fell off his scooter and skinned his knee really bad. 
• It was 86 degrees on Wednesday but instead of getting to enjoy the nice weather when we got home, I raced the storm clouds (and got a cool pic of them) to get to daycare before it started to pour. We got home right before it started to rain, and Lorelai stood at the door watching the rain, crying because she couldn't go outside.

BTW, I'm alazycrazylife on Instagram if you want to follow. Fair warning--I'm kinda lame and maybe post a couple during the week but usually end up posting a bunch of pictures right before I do this post :) I'm trying to get better about it!

Linking up with a good life.

And now I will eat my words

Remember two days ago when I complained that Lorelai wanted nothing to do with me? Yeah, I'm sure you know where this is going. She realized she needed me all right. At 8:30 last night, and 9:45...and 10:15, until Adam took her down to the couch so we could all go to sleep. And then this morning? She flung herself into my arms, but not in the cute and happy "mommy I missed you so much, I love you" way. More in the sad "don't you dare leave me, I'll flip out if you do" way. So that was just lovely.

But you know what? I didn't get frustrated, I didn't mind much at all, even when it looked like we were in for a night of very little sleep and being late to work. I got good, quality snuggles and loving from my baby that I so desperately missed a few days ago, and it was awesome (and yes, I say this after being fortunate enough to get a full night of sleep—it's easy to see through my rose-colored glasses when I'm not looking through a sleep-deprived fog ☺).

Ok, so it was only awesome until she squirmed her way out of my arms and went to our bedroom where she started to climb up on our bed. She's still a girl of few words, but there's no mistaking where she wanted to sleep last night, the sneaky little thing! That's why Adam took her to the couch instead, where she squirmed for a while, but finally fell asleep and was in her bed by 1am.

And now I've got a new phase I'd really like to be over soon—the one where she wakes up at all hours of the night. Seems like it happens every few months. No fun! We all need our sleep, right?

She runs away

I used to love picking Lorelai up from daycare because as soon as she'd see me, she'd run and jump into my arms, as happy as could be. Past tense. As of Monday. For the past two days, I've walked in and she's run away from me wanting nothing to do with me.



I do appreciate that she's becoming more independent and having so much fun she doesn't want to leave, but I'm not gonna lie, it makes me sad. I may or may not have actually cried a little when she still wanted nothing to do with me when we got home and flat out refused to give me a hug or a kiss. Hard not to take that personally. She's been so attached to me for so long that I'm really not used to it. Do not like!

I hope this is a short phase, I want my sweet momma's girl back.

A mess-making fool

On Saturday night after Aidan and Logan went to bed, some fool dumped out their stuffed animal baskets all over the floor in their room.

It looked like a much neater mess in the dark, like they were all trying to escape...

Who in the world would do such a thing? Well, ME, of course! After I pranked the boys on April Fools day last year with jello instead of juice in their cups, I had to follow up with something this year. Unfortunately, it was even more lame than last year. Fortunately, they got a kick out of it...after I clued them in on what was going on.

Yet again, they totally forgot that it was April Fools day, so they were absolutely confused when they woke up, especially since they had just cleaned up their room before bed (all part of my master plan). I heard them get up and come in our room, but since Adam and were still in bed trying to sleep, they tried to solve the mystery on their own. I heard them identify footprints near their door, and inspect the rest of the house for more mess.

When I got up, they were eager to let me know they had nothing to do with the mess in their room, and they told me all about the clues they found. Love that they weren't going to take the blame for that one! When I asked them if they remembered what day it was, it finally dawned on them that they got "April Fooled" by me again.

They laughed about it until they realized how unfair it would be for them to clean up a mess they didn't make. Ha! Don't worry, I cleaned it all up.

BTW, coming up with a relatively simple April Fools prank that didn't involve making a mess or scaring the crap out of my kids was really tough! I didn't want anything mean-spirited, too elaborate, or too messy (I'm not cleaning up water, shaving cream or food off the floors!), so my options were pretty limited. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them :)

iPhone photo dump {week 11}

No doubt about it, we had a great week!




Highlights:

• The zoo, fo sho.
• Adam and I took a half day on Friday and saw Hunger Games. Loved it! And the Five Guys burger we got before the movie was awesome, of course.
• We put together some more of our IKEA desk. Lorelai put on a Home Depot apron and Superman belt and "helped" :)
• We've been in desperate need of new kitchen table chairs for a while now. We've had four old chairs my mom passed down to us, so with 5 people sitting at the table, I was having to sit in our office chair. Then two of the chairs broke (sorry mom), so I jumped on some Target clearance chairs.With free shipping and 5% off with our Target card, I got four chairs for $35 each and they're nice looking and comfortable. Score!

Lowlights:

• The boys' tennis lessons got rained out for the second week in a row.
• I had laryngitis for 3 days, and I had quite a few meetings where I needed to speak. I sounded ridiculous, but oh well! It didn't hurt and I'm all better now.

I can't think of anything else that wasn't good about this week. I'll take it!

How was your week?