The Easter We'll Remember

Yes. I survived Easter weekend. I knew you were all worried.  Hunting easter eggs can be exhausting. Actually. Watching your children hunt easter eggs that you didn't have to hide can be exhausting. Then, eating the candy that came in the found easter eggs can be just as tiring. Especially if your children are fighting you for the candy because they think it's theirs. Not that this would happen to you. Probably only in my house. Because I eat candy that belongs to my children.

Anyway,

Since Easter begins with Good Friday in my book, this is how our Easter weekend started.

Dawson went to school and it was Immigration Day. I already posted a picture of him on FB and I'm too lazy to duplicate. After school he went home with his best buddy JJ and spent the day with his family which left Jason and I and Evan to figure out what to do with our lives on a good Friday.

Here's a picture of Evan and JJ:

That picture was taken right after their spring concert, during which, Dawson continuously turned around to talk to JJ in between each song. He doesn't get that chatty patty syndrome from me.

Jason and I decided to take Evan to the zoo.

He got to feed the giraffes.

We found the monkeys sleeping.

We found a meerkat looking for us

 and a peacock in a tree. Who knew peacocks could get into trees? Do they fly? All I know is, I don't think he could get down because he was still up there before we left the zoo. I tried calling him down but I don't speak peacock apparently.

Evan got to feed the budgie buddies. 

I'm wondering if this bird is the same hog that ate all the food when we took Dawson to this zoo:

 Evan was very serious about the birds. He wasn't thrilled when it decided to climb up his arm onto his back either.

The last thing we did before leaving the zoo (since we couldn't get the peacock down from the tree) was climb the Will Roger's shrine. 

I'm going to interject here that I'm in way better shape now than I was in 2007 when we climbed to the top of this building. Or, maybe I have bigger lungs. There are a bazillion stairs to the top. But the view is worth it.

On Saturday, we took the boys to an Easter event they had Greg's church (that's Jason's dad, but saying "Jason's dads' church is really complicated).

The boys did crafts and then got to hunt easter eggs outside.

Evan immediately took to carrying his basket in the crook of his arm and this cracked me up. He will most likely hunt easter eggs professionally when he's older.

When we got home, Dawson and I did a little project my mom sent to us. She did this project with her Sunday School class at church. It's Davinci's version of The Last Supper.

Who is going to pay me as much for this piece of art as they would for Davinci's? Message me.

And Sunday finally came.

I had the boys hunt for their Easter baskets the way my mom used to have me do when I was little. I loved it. This year I put clues in the Easter eggs and then hid the eggs throughout the house for Dawson to find. Evan never found his basket since he can't read. NO. I didn't do that for Evan. I just put his basket on the floor in the basement and he still couldn't find it. I had to point at it. But he liked it just the same. 

You will notice that Dawson is dressed differently in the rest of the pictures after the one shown below. This is because, for one thing, I was unprepared and he didn't have any clean khaki's to wear. So he had to put these pants on until his clean pants were done in the wash. THEN, later he wanted to wear shorts. What a diva.

Some Easter pictures for your enjoyment:

And now for the best story of all. Not that the previous stories were brilliant. But this one is.

Dawson came to me several weeks ago out of the blue and asked if he could get baptized. I must say I was shocked and wasn't sure what to say, but after talking to him about it more, it seemed like something he really wanted to do. So he talked to Grandpa Greg and we decided he could be baptized on Easter Sunday at their church. 

Here he is, prebaptism waiting in line for his turn.

They made a video of each person giving their testimony and we watched before the baptism took place.

Here's Dawson ready for the plunge.

And here's the video of the entire thing. There's a crazy lady cheering loudly at the end but you can ignore her. I'm not sure who she is.

Baptized, Sanctified.. all those other over used church terms while he waits patiently all wrapped in his post baptism towel. I wonder if Jesus got a towel after he was baptized? If he did, I hope it was yellow.

After church we came home to bake our green bean casserole before going to Grandma & Grandpa's house for Easter lunch.

The boys entertained themselves while we waited.

Evan found an ant and spent some time crawling after it even though I was upset because I didn't want him to ruin his Easter clothes. After a while, you just give up.

Finally, it was time to go to Easter lunch.

We celebrated my birthday even though it's not until tomorrow.

These 3 little stinkers watched out the window while Easter eggs were being hidden.

Here we go with the crook of the arm again.

Dawson is such a good big brother. Gently pointing Evan in the direction away from the eggs so that he can get more. Actually, I think they were done hunting by the time I got this picture. So really, this is brotherly love in the raw. Or something.

 Happy Easter. 

And to all a good night.