We'd Rather Smash 'Em Than Find 'Em

It's become quite obvious that the Easter egg hunt is not the most exciting tradition around here.

Their favorite?

Cascarones.

Just check out Kyle's cascarones game face.

Ready, Set, Go!

Of course the aftermath is quite ugly.

Well, really, the aftermath is kinda pretty...it's the actual clean-up that's the ugly part.

Peeps and More

I'm still trying to storyboard my Easter post.

(Don't worry, I don't really storyboard my posts.  I do write them in my head...and that just hasn't happened yet.)

So until I can get it together, here's a picture that

A. Will make my mom happy to see everybody.

and

B. Has our entire family looking at the camera. (Which so rarely happens.)

I also have this picture of my now famous Peeps Swimming in Blue Jello.

With my cooking issues, I have very few dishes I'm known for.

Saturday afternoon JR asked me if I'd "make the Peeps swimming in blue jello like last year."

Um yeah.  Pretty sure I can handle that one!

Glorious Day

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

 In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead...

1 Peter 1:3.

Egg-n 'Em On

I've always celebrated Easter at my cousin's house. (And when I say "always" I'm talking the last 20+ years, so yeah, always.) We made the trek down to Texas last Easter and learned that a weekend trip full of airplanes and rent cars with this pack of kids is not exactly easy or relaxing. We made the decision to stay here, but realized we have no Easter traditions of our own, and had no idea how we should spend the day.
Jason wanted to have an Easter brunch after church so we headed out to the Sky Ute Casino. Yes, I'm painfully aware of the irony of going to a casino for Easter Brunch, but they have a nice buffet, and it's not like we spent the afternoon at the slot machines.

We knew just an Easter brunch wasn't enough for this family, so a few days before Easter I emailed some of our neighbors to come over for an egg hunt. It was a beautiful day and with 11 kids coming over, the bouncy house, and all our riding toys, it turned into a little party. (And you know how we love a party!)

We started off with two dozen cascarones (confetti eggs). None of the kids or parents had seen them before, so JR was excited to show everybody how they worked. And of course, the kids loved them.

Kyle loved them so much that when all the cascarones were gone, he went and found the plastic hiding eggs and started smashing them on his own head. Of course he was showered in candy instead of confetti, but he liked that just as much.

After the celebratory cascarones, it was time for the egg hunt. Here's the egg hunt starting line.

And now for the absolute best part. I have no pictures of the egg hunt or the rest of the party. I was actually enjoying talking and visiting so much that I forgot all about taking pictures. Now that's a sign of a fun day!

Photoshop

After we finished the Easter Bunny at 6:55 (I know. JR is still under the impression that the Easter Bunny and Santa's gifts are going to be on par.) we started getting ready for church. As soon as JR saw his outfit, he ran and cowered in the corner screaming "Nooo!" I was utterly appalled at the thought of a Tony Hawk skateboarding T-shirt as Easter Sunday attire. (Especially with no little girls to dress up.) But after some high-intensity-military-like negotiations, we agreed that he could wear shorts if he'd wear the rest of the outfit.
And yes, JR (like his father) still can't take a picture if there's one drop of sunlight in the sky. (Not to worry, Jason's squinting picture to follow.)


I fixed the squinting problem. But then Kyle and Reed decided they needed balls as props.

This was the one and only family picture we took. Jason couldn't handle the sun in his eyes either, so we gave up after one shot.

Now, you might notice that I'm wearing a sleeveless dress while the rest of the family is in sweaters and there's snow in the yard. Well, being that I was raised in The South here's a few southern Easter dress lessons that I still abide by:

A. You will have a new dress. It must be in spring colors, no black.

B. You need an Easter bonnet. Little girls also need new patent leather white shoes, a new white purse, and white gloves with lace around the cuffs.

C. You will wear your new Easter dress even if "a norther" or "cold spell" has blown in.

And it seems the rule here in Colorado is if the temperature is above freezing, summerware is perfectly acceptable. So the way I see it, I passed both the southern and Coloradoan fashion rules on that one.

Stay tuned for photos from the 1st Annual Ingy Egg Hunt!

One Last Peep

Okay, so I've only got a few more hours to talk Peeps before Easter is over, so I'll hurry this along. We hosted an egg hunt/mini Easter party for our neighbors this afternoon, and here's one of the things I served. The pictures I saw of this on the Internet were much cuter than how mine turned out, but the kids loved it. I'm talking loved it. Big hit.

Peeps Blue Raspberry Sparkle

Happy Easter!

"Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen!" Luke 24:5-6

I Heart Peeps

Guess what came in the mail yesterday?

When Jason saw the Peeps costumes he gave me "the look".

Me: What?! I don't have any girls.

Jason: They're not dolls, you know.

Yes, I'm aware they aren't dolls, but come on. Who could resist Peeps costumes?!

And with Peeps costumes ready, we had our Easter egg hunt practice after church today.

Practice? you might ask.

Yes, Practice.

My mom has always thought it best to practice Easter egg hunting skills. (Must be a tradition of the German Jew Presbyterians.) So JR has been raised with egg hunt practicing as standard pre-Easter procedure. Today's eggs were empty...just warming up for the real thing.

Unfortunately, It was a little difficult finding hiding places.

First problem: snow (which I did hide a few in)

Then there was the mud

And the non springlike foliage

I also had an experienced egg hunter knocking down Peeps to get to the eggs. During our first practice round he was handicapped with a "have a seat and let them find some". I wised up for the second round and hid "expert level hunter eggs" in the next door neighbors' yard.

Egg Hunters beware. We Ingys are ready. Bring it on!

Baby Talk: Easter Party #21

Guest Bloggers: Kyle and Reed Ingersoll

K: We were super excited to go to Texas for Easter and see all our grandparents. We also attended the 21st annual Easter party at our Aunt Lu's. (She's really mommy's cousin, but we like to call everybody "aunt".)

R: Here's JR and "favorite cousin Caleb" about to eat lunch.
K: And now that we've seen JR, I think that's quite enough of him. Let's see how we spent the day!


R: We rode Big Wheels.



K:We tried to take a family Easter egg hunt picture.
R: I don't think we did too good. Elizabeth is the only one smiling and looking at the camera!


R: Mommy tried to help me hunt more eggs, but after I found three I was satisfied. I had way more fun just playing with my eggs than looking for more.

K: Me too! Daddy finally gave up trying to make me hunt more when I started crying. Not sure why we needed any more. These two were super fun!

R: We were too little to hold the big pinata stick, so we beat him with a maraca. It was awesome!

K: I hit him so hard I think I broke him!

R: Umm, No you didn't.

R: We loved all the food, but the cookies were the best.

K: It was great. Maw-Maw and Paw-Paw kept telling Mommy, "Go get these babies some more cookies."

R: It was a fun day. We loved the Easter party!

Bunny Bailout

Was there a Bunny Bailout I missed? With this economy the media won't quit talking about, I was sure the picture with the Easter Bunny line wouldn't have been 2 HOURS LONG. Oh yes, 2 hours! And just to make sure we're all on the same page about the state of our economy, Jason and I picked the cheapest Easter Bunny picture package which was $21.64 (to be exact) AND we had all our kids in one picture. Part of the reason the picture line was 2 HOURS is that most parents were having a group shot of their kids, and then individual shots. Oh yeah they were. Not only that, but both families who checked out in front of me, bought the $20 Easter frames for the pictures!

So how did the picture turn out? Well, about like I thought it would. I knew Kyle wouldn't want anything to do with The Bunny, and I knew Reed would be fine with him as long as he thought it was a big dog. Reed looked a little scared at first, but after I petted the Easter Bunny like a dog, Reed followed right along. He sat in his lap with no tears. I thought I could keep Kyle from crying by putting him in JR's lap, but as you can see from the picture, no such luck. So here's the picture, which I actually love because it captures each of their personalities perfectly. Kyle full of drama and scared to death, Reed content but not overjoyed, and JR thrilled since he knows The Easter Bunny will be bringing a basket of goodies for him.

Easter Bunny

The Easter Bunny visited our house last night. JR came downstairs crying, "Mommy, the Easter Bunny didn't come!" He did the same thing about Santa at Christmas. I guess he just expects the presents to be right in front of his eyes when he opens them. After we assured him the Easter Bunny HAD come, JR quickly went off in search of his basket. As you can see, the Easter Bunny was pretty good to JR. (Check out JR's bed head in the picture!)

The Easter Bunny knows the little boys are still too small to understand Easter, but he was nice enough to leave them some matching onesies in their baskets.

Happy Easter!

20th Annual Family Easter Party

We all had a great time at the annual family Easter party. The food was dee-lish and we had a huge crowd (did we ever do an official head count?) JR had a blast playing with all of his cousins, they really wore him out!

The little boys found themselves with plenty of people to hold them, so they loved that. Here's Kyle with Jason and Reed with my dad.

My cousin, Lu, had a bouncy castle for the kids this year. JR screamed, "It's Scooby Doo!" when he saw it. The kids really loved bouncing, and you can imagine what a big, sweaty, mess JR looked like by the end of the day.

Now I know everybody is on pins and needles wondering about the Easter Bonnet competition. Well, as you will see from the picture there were some fierce competitors. But, not to worry, I was able to pull out the win.

I'm going to be eating candy for a month. JR came home with a truck full of eggs from the Easter egg hunt....good thing the Easter Bunny didn't get JR much candy!

The kids also had a few of the confetti eggs to crack on each other. Here's JR about to smash one on Caleb's head.

Since almost all the cousins are boys, they really aren't into the typical Easter pinatas...So this year it was the Red Easter Power Ranger. Look what the poor thing looked like after they were done with it!

We even had a slide show of 20 years of Easter parties. Thanks, Kristi, for doing that...I know how much work that was! What a fun day!