{easter}

This Easter was celebrated at my mom's house. She hosted her first Easter get-together a few years back and it has since become a tradition. Last year Dean did not quite understand the Easter egg hunt, but this year he did much better. Most people hide those plastic candy-filled eggs for their children to find, but not my mom. Those are only for the Easter baskets. She hides real eggs. The evening before Easter we hard-boil all the eggs and spend the night dyeing and decorating them. It was so funny to watch Dean scout out the eggs because he was by no means gentle. He would literally slam them into his Easter pail. By the time he handed them over to my mom, they were all broken. All the better to make deviled eggs with, I suppose. And that's just what we did.

Here is Dean opening his Easter basket in the early morning. He was so excited because it was Mater and Lightning McQueen - his favorites. It was filled with a Pixar's Cars coloring book & markers, matchbox cars, plastic eggs with candy, bubbles, a stuffed sheep lovie and a giant hollow bunny. (It looks empty because he immediately dumped all the contents to look at the bucket and then wanted to rummage through all the shredded paper.)

Here he is hunting for eggs with Daddy's help.

This is pretty much how Eli and cousin Isabella spent most of their Easter. Bella is 5 weeks younger than Eli.

Around the dinner table - the best part of Easter.

Great-Grandpa and the boys.





















Grandkids & Great Grandkids. (From top left: my cousin Leah & Bella; Me & Eli; my twin sister Alisha & Angelia; my sister Brittany & Autumn's daugher, Willow; my cousin Autumn & Leah's daughter, Madison. Sitting: my grandpa & Dean.)
Just the kids. (From left: Isabella - 3 months, Eli - 4 months, Angelia - 15 months, Dean - 21 months, Willow - 3 years, Madison - 2 years.)
We spent Monday with my Dad and Grandma (and my sister and her boyfriend).