Happy Hilarious Easter!

From our family to yours!  We take time today to celebrate our Lord's sacrifice for us and reflect on the miracle of our salvation in Him.  Normally, Hubs and I would travel back to MI to spend time with both of our families and attend service with them, but this year I'm under strict no-traveling orders.

Good Friday morning, M got straight to work lining up his cars!

Saturday afternoon, dying yellow and blue eggs with Daddy

N and I dyed green and pink eggs

Cheese!

All finished!

Dyeing eggs was a big hit this year!  It was certainly one of the highlights of our weekend.  They were SO into dipping and checking, dipping and checking...and taking ownership of their colors.  If I'd have known that dying them was the trick to getting them to EATING them (duh!) I'd have dyed them months ago!  Dyeing eggs may be the new norm over here.

This morning, we attended and served at our new church, then hosted another toddler-parent family for an informal Easter lunch since taking our children out to eat - on a VERY expensive day to do so, at that - would have been a disaster.  (Or so I thought!)

I knew that we'd be getting family photos taken at church today, so I made a special effort to curl my hair and get the boys dressed in button down shirts, no small task at my stage in the game, not to mention Hubs was already at worship practice so I was flying solo.  I'll skip the part where dressing and pottying N was akin to dressing and pottying a wildcat, to tell you that M was a very good sport about it!  So everything started off great (snicker, snicker).

Here's where I would (and perhaps will) insert the family photo taken of us at church today.  I do so hope it turned out since the last photo we have of all four of us smiling at a camera was taken when the boys were 16 months old (October '10!).  Not to say we haven't tried....

Then I took the boys home only to discover my precooked ham....wasn't.  Yeah, I had less than an hour to cook my ham for 3 hours.  WHO KNEW that they even sold hams that aren't pre-cooked?  Me, I guess. 

Oh, and did I mention that in the "less than an hour" before Hubs and the company arrived that the boys backed up the toilet, had a potty accident, and I totally clogged the garbage disposal with a massive amount of potato peelings? And that when they walked in I was trying desperately to swiffer the week's yogurt off the dining room floor but that the batteries were dead so I was spraying cleaner in one hand and swiffering with the other? 

But the cavalry DID arrive and us four adults were able to tame the three toddlers and get dinner on the table at 1:00 as planned....HAMBURGERS with salad, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and King's Hawaiian rolls.  It was quite delicious, just not exactly  what I had in mind when I planned it.  They boys ate the rolls and the eggs, which is probably what they would have eaten even if my ham had turned out gloriously.

There was about an hour of peace as the boys napped, we finally got to actually talk  to our guests, watch the Master's and eat a dessert that I didn't screw up (okay, I did yesterday, but it turned out today!).  (Insert ham story)  Oh yeah, speaking of gloriously....I still cooked the ham according to its package directions and estimated a 3.5 hour cooking time based on its weight and the minutes directed for each pound, so that we could still eat ham for our evening meal and have leftovers.  I should have gone upstairs when our friend said, "I smell bacon," as that was yet another red flag that something not quite right is going on with this ham again.  But I waited another half hour until I heard the timer, only to discover...a ham carcass.

I gasped, then laughed, then brought my friend up to see the remains.  Normally I think I can hold my own in the kitchen but not today, not this holiday, not at 36+ weeks pregnant!  We all had a good laugh and the poor ham got unceremoniously trashed later in the evening, while I was waiting for the Liquid Plumr to work on the garbage disposal.

But that's not all, folks......................

We found our friends' son awake in the pack and play in our room, rifling through a dresser drawer he could reach.  At first it appeared he was only trying on my bracelets, but about an  hour after they left, Hubs discovered that the kid ate an ENTIRE tube of Chapstick!  I texted her just 30 minutes before she found out what that does to the diaper on the other end.

FINALLY, the Easter Bunny came for the boys!  Good thing he brought candy, because they didn't give a rip about anything else!  The eggs were scattered about and they had a good time finding them, scarfing the jellybeans, then repeating.  This year we tried to get them to at least put the eggs in their basket, despite the eggs being empty.  They sort of got it.  Here, take a look:

Candy!

Jelly beans!

Look, Easter Bunny brought you sunglasses, too.

I don't care!  More candy!

I found another one!

N puts all his eggs in one basket.

Theyr'e sharing!  Glad Hubs snapped a pic!

Taking a break in the hallway where they found a stash

Cleaning up the last of the eggs

It was a rather unusual, somewhat hilarious and definitely memorable Easter for us!  Hope you all had a good time where you were with good food, good company, and lots of laughs.  We did.

Little Funnies

"I'll have Nutella and blueberry preserves on wheat, please"

• M's vocabulary is exploding and he'll talk to anyone who will listen...or is in audible range.  He'll repeat anything he hears, but I was floored this morning when he came down the stairs in Hubs' arms and said, "Good Morning, Mama."  WHAT?!

"Whee!"

•  N's vocabulary is also increasing but he'll only talk to me, Hubs, and "bro-bro," which I didn't realize until my friend A, who babysat on Saturday night, said that N refused to say a single word!  He did, however, ask for treats by placing a hand on her knee and giving her the eyes.  Then, he didn't say anything when we had company yesterday until they backed out the drive. "Bye, bye" he called.  I assume this is just a stage, though, and he'll speak up for himself soon enough.

• M likes to bring me my slippers if he can find them.  I call him my little puppy.
• N has figured out how to open doors.  I bought doorknob covers this weekend.  As if my house doesn't look cool enough, these are over the top stylish!
• They are terrifying me by WALKING up and down the stairs, no matter how I try to coax them to "go down on your belly."  As a result, we tentatively removed a gate at the bottom of the stairs because if they're going to do it, at least they can land on the carpet and not crash into the gate!

• Yesterday M was talking about "Gama," so we Skyped with both of the grandmas before bed.  While we were talking with them, he found the "cama," so I helped M take this pic of Uncle D, "SheeShee," and "Gama." 

•  M ate scrambled eggs this morning!  I've been told you have to introduce some foods up to 17 times before a kid will eat it, and I'm pretty sure this is accurate. Maybe he needed 19 months to digest the eggs I ate while I was pregnant with gestational diabetes?  Two eggs/day X two months = 180 eggs?  Maybe he was just sick of them until now.
• N was helping me fold laundry when he took a dishtowel out of the basket then carried it into the kitchen and PUT IT AWAY in the correct drawer without any prompting!  A also told me that when she told the boys to clean up their toys Saturday, they filled up the basket then ran to the bottom of the stairs, ready to go up for night night. I seriously have the best kids ever!
• I'm kind of proud of myself, too.  Since I took up crocheting two months ago, I've improved to the point that I think I can actually make items as gifts for other people (as in, other than my immediate family who will always be kind no matter what it looks like because they're just that cool).  I tried my hand at baby bear hats (for Hubs' former boss whose baby boy is in the NICU, and for my cousin K who is due on Valentine's Day - check out her blog here.)  Hope I didn't ruin the surprise!  I think they turned out well!  And the afghan behind the bears is my first for my future niece, due in April.  Not too shabby, huh?