Busy Bunnies

When did Easter become so fantabulous? It's like Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, and Fourth of July all rolled up in one low stress holiday! There's the overnight visitor bearing gifts, the big family dinners, the candy-palooza (and apparently costumes, if you're Toddle Inn), and the outdoor celebrations and BBQs. I guess with kids, every holiday gets elevated and over-emphasized a bit, because the little excited faces that result from all the fanfare are just so darn cute! This year, action started in the Stockwell house on Thursday evening and ran straight through to Sunday night. All the excitement definitely wore the boys (and their Mommy) out - they each took mega naps on Monday (while I put the house back in order but should have been napping).

The fun began with a very, very, very cold Sea Dogs game on Thursday night. With temps in the low 40s and some kind of crazy wind chill, Ben jumped at the chance to stay home with Adam while Ethan, Uncle Pauly, and I bundled up and braved about 6 innings. Ethan was definitely more intrigued by the baseball action than he was last year, but was still most enthralled by the food. Thank god for the hot cocoa - that bought us a few extra innings.

Friday morning we did some traditional egg dying, which I am happy to report is getting a little more manageable and a little less messy every year.

Saturday we awoke to a mix of rain and snow (!) and realized the egg hunt/bbq we had planned for the afternoon was going to have to move indoors. It was a hit nonetheless - these kids don't appear to tire of hunting for plastic eggs, particularly if they're filled with candy.

This little monkey flew under the radar in traditional second child fashion - before we knew it he was knee deep in a wild sugar mania and literally bouncing off the walls. Oops. He wasn't the only one - if this picture doesn't sum up four 2-4 year olds who have had way too much sugar, I don't know what does:

They're all looking different directions, no one is interacting, and clearly sitting still is a challenge, and yet they are all still stuffing their little faces with the good stuff.

Before the egg hunt, we had each of the kids decorate a bag to hold their treasures. Clearly, one of our children is extremely Type A.

And maybe a tad bossy too.

But the egg hunt was really adorable. We had four different colored eggs (one for each kiddo), and they were all so good about finding the right eggs and giving others to their rightful owners. Ethan was the ringleader (or spoiler, depending on how you look at it), alerting the other kids to the location of their eggs with continuous shouts of "Hey ____, over here!".

Thanks to Ben and Uncle Pauly who hid all the eggs so well and then missed the egg hunt entirely while discussing fantasy baseball.

Despite our inability to locate him last week, the Easter Bunny did in fact hit up our house on Saturday night. We awoke to a trail of carrot crumbs in the basement on Sunday morning (to which Adam said in a worried voice "The Easter Bunny throwed up!"). The boys got loads of good loot from the big bunny and the uncle that loves to spoil them, including some sporty stuff that will keep us busy if we ever get a spring here in Maine. No pictures of the basket unveiling (boo!), or the whole family here for Easter dinner (double boo!), but here are some from yet another egg hunt we attended on Easter morning at Ben's cousin Carolyn's house:

"I don't see any eggs out here."

"Can I eat this?" We heard this ALL WEEKEND LONG. The answer was usually, but should have always been, "No".

Impossible to get a cute multi-generational shot.

Can you tell who is most excited about this egg hunt?

We need one of these.

Easter dinner was like a big old Christmas reunion, minus Auntie Gwen and family (we missed you guys!). The Magyar/Stockwells sure do enjoy eating and celebrating together, and we're so fortunate to be able to spend these holidays with both families. May the tradition continue!