Easter part two...of three...

Time for the whirl-wind marathon of Easter egg hunts!  We did another double-in-a-day this year...Biesinger's first, then Strong's all in the same day.

Lauren, Jay (who managed to stay out of range from my picture taking) and Katie Jane all find their Easter surprise, which is yummy cakes and pies made by Gma B, by using a compass and coordinates made up by Gpa B.

Jon and Tasha...Jon wanted the flag pole behind them, but I think he wanted the FLAG included with the flag pole.  :)  Love them!!

Oh, Emily's BIG, BLUE eyes!  So beautiful!  If I had a fancy editing program I could really prove how blue they are in real life!  Being the smart little girl she is, she has learned that if a camera gets in her face...scowl!  Anna says she does it every time!  That's what happens when you're cute!

I had Emma waiting for me to take her picture with her Easter basket and I was watching the horse (named???? My kids will remind me, I'm sure!) creep closer and closer to Emma until it stuck it's nose right in Emma's back...this is her reaction to it!  The dog was picking up the plastic eggs and carrying them off and the horses figured out a way to break them open...horses love jelly beans apparently!  It was an egg-hunt for ALL!

Cute little Jennie!

And then at the end of the day...we got home with baskets full of candy, two pies, and one cake to a house that smelled like hard boiled eggs after making the potato salad and deviled eggs...MMMM! (not) 

Easter part one...

** procrastination-disclaimer**

I feel like a total loser of a person today.  Not only as a person/woman, but as a mother.  Church happened to be one of those Sundays when I realized that I'm doing more wrong than I am doing right. I hate it when I feel this way and digging my way out of my self-pity-hole is overwhelming. And then I notice that I still have Easter stuff that is sitting and waiting for me. 

Great!

Come on, Julie...get on the ball!!

It's the time of year again for dyed eggs, dyed fingers and dyed eggs in the potato salad!  It's just not Easter unless there's a hit of blue or pink in the potato salad, right!

And another Easter without Will.  Sooo...that's different from any other year, how? You ask?

Ryan and Kristy had us to their home for FHE and between Kristy and I, we had over 70 boiled eggs for the kids to color!  Coloring eggs always stresses me out.  Our kids have been at the age where the coloring spills all over and colors the counter tops, or they thought it was a punch to drink and discovered that just because it looks thirst-quenchingly good but smells nasty, means that it does, in fact, taste nasty too!

Halle and Jessica

Jay is getting less and less interested in stuff like this.  It's art-sy, so the girls liked it, but pretty soon it's just going to me me and Emma doing all these fun, (extremely time consuming) holiday traditional things.  So I have no pics of Jay...most of my other pictures didn't turn out because I refuse to use a flash inside...still learning these camera tricks...but pictures or not, we had a great time.  Grumpa even got involved and colored eggs.  That has NEVER happened in my 38 years on this earth. NEVER!  I hope my kids realize the significance of that event!

Thanks for the wonderful dinner and the yummy, yummy salad and for letting the mess be at your house, Kristy!

Happy Easter!

I mean...Merry Christmas!  Did I just say Happy Easter?  Of course it's not Easter!  How could it possibly be Easter?  Would this normally happen at Easter time?  The poor Easter Bunny would FREEZE!!

So...out comes my electric blanket that was so lovingly folded and put away under my bed...not to be used again until colder weather is at our door.  I so needed it last night and didn't think that in the morning I would be seeing this sight.  Watching conference with the fireplace on is not normal.

The family room is brimming with blankets, bean-bags, pillows and kids buried somewhere inside them.

Willie enjoyed the snow though.  Making curly-cue paths around the yard.  I think he prefers to sit outside the door and let all the snow balls melt off his legs instead of having me squeeze his little legs dry.  Despite the snow covering...EVERYTHING...the sunshine feels great!

I'm not complaining...just annoyed.