Stella loves Easter.
Elliot was surprisingly able to give his talk at church and though he claims he rambled and couldn't gather his thoughts, I believe he did right well.
We tried to hurry over to Grandma and Grandpa Anderson's for our Easter dinner before Elliot fell asleep (me too). We ate a delicious ham dinner with G&G, Aunt Nat, and cousin Tatem before Grandma busted out the bubbles for the girls.
Strategically, Grandpa came outside a little while later to inform the girls that he thought he heard the Easter Bunny hopping around. The bubbles were quickly forgotten as they ran inside to listen for the Easter Bunny hops.
I knew that the Easter Bunny would be kind enough to hide some eggs in plain sight for 3-year-old Tatem, but I wasn't sure Stella could resist picking those up. We had a little talk about helping Tatem get some eggs too . . . she has no recollection of that conversation, I'm sure.
For as soon as Stella was out the door, all we saw was a blur of 6-year-old darting about the yard picking up EVERY egg she saw.
I even had to stop her to feel her heartbeat. Good grief. Her eyes were glazed over.
Luckily, Tatem had some other helpers . . .
. . . and Stella started giving Tatem some that she had already retrieved after she had abandoned her overflowing basket.
After Stella did another sweep or two of the yard and decided there were no more eggs to be found, they searched through their loot and did a few bunny hops to end the hunt.
(if you happen to comment on this post, please feel free to leave an extra comment directed toward my parents in encouraging them to get a pool fence . . . much thanks)The girls dumped the contents of their Easter eggs onto a blanket (mostly so Stella could decide which ones were keepers), Tatem happily shared a lot of her candy, and Stella hoarded hers (except the ones she didn't like). Natalie and I may have helped them consume some.
Then they played bouncy ball with Grandma. Thanks for a lovely Easter!
. . . but the funniest part of the evening was . . . my bright idea of having some of the Easter eggs filled with something other than candy not going over over so well.
Tatem found this polka-dot blue egg and was immediately skeptical of it's light weight. She examined it's contents, found that it was indeed NOT candy, sneered digustedly, and quickly discarded it in the rocks.
I got a text from my sister Natalie (Tatem's mom) later saying, "I had a hankerin' for chocolate, so I snuck into Tatem's Easter basket, dug deep down, pulled out an egg hoping to fulfill my chocolate craving, broke it open and out popped a blue koosh ball. Now I know how Tatem felt."
Fine. Straight candy from now on.
Some of the family members decided to freeze their patooties off by getting into the pool before we took Miles to the airport. Stella thought it was pretty cold and this was about how far she got in until I bribed her with $1 to go all the way under. She didn't want that, so I let that offer expire and offered her 75 cents and an ice cream cone. That one expired too. She ended up with 50 cents and an ice cream cone.
Brynnie was just happy as could be jumping in to Uncle Miles and swimming over to get that octopus. Seriously, the squeals outnumbered the shivers.
Hannah only went this far a couple of times, but mostly just walked around the outside of the pool with Stella and a golf club.
Lindsay decided to be fair and jump in. This was only after she totally SHOVED Natalie in. I really wish she would have warned me that she was going to push her because it was HILARIOUS!
Stella's upset because "Uncle Ian is the meanest uncle in the world!" He pulled her in. She was clearly upset.
Not sure why Miss T is upset.
She was pretty happy to be swimming with her daddy most of the time.
Hanny is always exclaiming, "He sure is a Malcolm!"
Miss Tatem wanted to see him, but not hold him. He looks offended.
