Easter and then some

We spent Easter Sunday busy as usual.  Unprepared also often describes me, and this Sunday was no different.  I hadn't even bought the kids' Easter outfits yet!  Can you imagine?

The Saturday before Easter is an annual Easter egg hunt in Coppell.  We've been every year that we've lived here and David has always had a blast.  One year it even snowed!

Well, obviously, the kids needed to have their new outfits on for the Easter egg hunt...it's all about the pictures after all.  So we went on a quick shopping trip first thing when the mall opened and then headed straight for the hunt.

There was a small photo op spot set up.  Don't they look adorable?

The basket is strategically placed in that picture - it's covering the fact that I didn't bring proper Easter shoes for Katherine to wear!  I wouldn't give away that little secret, but you can see them in other pictures, so I'm busted.  But hey - we did remember to swing back by the house and pick up a bow.  Priorities people, we have to have priorities.

Here's the shoes:
And here they are again.
And again...
And here's David waiting to go for the eggs.
Normally, this egg hunt is run like a ship.  They start precisely on time and it lasts all of 45 seconds.  It's really just hundreds of eggs laid out on soccer fields that are separated by age.  This was the first year that David actually wished the eggs were actually hidden instead of out in the open.  The Easter bunny took care of him...stay tuned.

Anyway, this year (of course, since we were already late for another function), they started the hunt THIRTEEN minutes late.  This is like an eternity to hundreds of kids age 0-12 who are staring at all the eggs while they wait and wait.  It's also an eternity for moms and dads who are late to the soccer team lunch and who are dealing with a very hyper-active 14 month old who doesn't want to be held and wants to go after all the eggs that are just sitting there right in front of her.  Yeah, this mommy was NOT happy about the delay.

They also said over the loudspeaker no less than 6 times that for the kids older than 4, parents are to STAY ON THE SIDELINES while their kids go crazy for the eggs.  The kids are old enough to come back to you and they're also big enough that parents out there just really get in the way.

So at 11:13, they sound the alarm and off go the kids.  Here's David taking off:

And making a quick duck for an egg.
And then the mass of humanity about 10 seconds after the alarm sounded to start the whole thing.
See all those parents out there?  Really?!?  These kids are 5 and 6 years old.  You send them to kindergarten every day.  They will be FINE apart from you for 15 seconds while they hunt-but-not-really-hunt-just-pick-up-eggs-filled-with-useless-ummm, well, you know.  Are we really that paranoid that we won't let our 5-year-old kids 20 feet away from us?  Another annoyance from the hunt - where Katherine was the parents DO go with the kids.  I mean, she is in the 0-3 group.  John actually heard moms and dads YELLING at their kids to "GET THE CANDY, GET THE CANDY!!!"  Seriously, if your life is so bad that you're pimping your kids at Easter egg hunts to get candy, you got it bad.  I say - let those kids have the candy.  If they're under such intense pressure to get candy for mom & dad...let them have it!  I'll give my 1-year-old some candy when she gets home.

Anyway, we boogied out of there and headed to Joe's Crab Shack to meet up with David's soccer team for the end-of-season-party.

And it was a PARTY!  Who knew Joe's had a playground?  Genius.
Katherine found a slide and crawled up the wrong way.  Why is it that EVERY child wants to go up a slide instead of down it?  See the little girl on the left in the next picture?  Her name is Chrissy and she's the little sister of one of David's teammates.  Her mommy and daddy brought her home about 2 months before Katherine was born.  She's so sweet to Katherine and always has been.  They're the only little sisters on the team.
Katherine crawled up on to that slide about 100 times.  Then she'd just get back down.  I'm not sure why she thought that was so much fun, but she must have.  I think Chrissy got bored and went to play with the rocks.
And here's David playing on the playground too.
Here's a picture of his soccer team (well, plus an older sister on the right - belongs to the same family with Chrissy).  Aren't the boys so cute?!?!  They've been together for 4 seasons now.  They went undefeated this season and we're all looking forward to next year when we'll have...you guessed it...GOALIES!!!
David with his cupcake.  He doesn't like cupcakes, but he thought it was awesome that his name was on this one.
So on Easter Sunday morning, the Easter bunny had come and actually HID the eggs.  David was thrilled.  He wasn't so happy that the bunny didn't leave a note to tell him how many were hidden though.  Maybe the Easter bunny will learn from his/her mistakes and correct that little problem next year?

So here's David finding a hidden egg.
That sneaky rabbit did hide a couple of them in plain sight, but *just* out of David's reach.  John tried to tell him that meant those eggs were for Mommy & Daddy, but he didn't buy it.  So here's David trying to jump to reach an egg.
Then he got creative with his stool and pillows.
Ahhh - finally made it work.
What's really funny about this is that David doesn't even really eat candy.  The eggs were almost all filled with chocolate so I'm not really sure why David even really cared about finding them.  We quit trying to understand David's motives a long time ago.

Katherine's basket was frilly.  John picked this out.  I don't want the comments, give them to him!  The Easter bunny brought her a Beanie Baby bunny.  She was thrilled.  Can't you tell?
Peering in there for more goodies.
She's making this face ALL THE TIME now.  It's so funny!  I'm not sure where it came from, but it's hysterical.
The bunny also brought David a jump rope.  He's been jumping at school for a while, but he's told us before that he's not really very good at it.  I guess the Easter bunny wanted to help David improve his form.
So Katherine and David do not share the same taste in candy.  Katherine actually likes it!  She was even trying to eat the Hershey kisses THROUGH the foil.  Yum.
David also got one of those cool cups with the straw on the outside.  He got one about a year ago, but this one LIGHTS UP!  Man, that Easter bunny is resourceful!
Here's just a pretty picture of a pretty girl.
We did color Easter eggs.  I'll spare you all the sordid details, but suffice it to say that we had many choices with the coloring of the eggs.  Here's David showing off his creativity.
We think this one is the best egg.  It actually came out camouflaged!
That's about all for our Easter celebrations.  We actually skipped church on Easter weekend.  I'm not the biggest fan of fighting the Easter crowd at church - I figure we go every week so a visitor can have my seat.  I'm so generous, right?

This week was great for being outside and Katherine, for one, LOVES to be outside.  She can now climb on the chairs we have on our back porch:
Ummm, yeah, that looks safe, doesn't it?  Speaking of patio furniture, we're looking for some.  We've looked everywhere...from Sam's to the high priced speciality stores.  Our favorite is way too expensive so we haven't bought anything yet.  We take a pay-cut in the summer when David goes to Creme full time you know.  Sheesh.

Much like last spring, we have a visitor in our backyard.  This time, it's not on the electrical box, it's even worse.  This smarty-pants bird built a nest in our ceiling fan on the porch!!!  Yep, this poor soul is just sitting there hoping I don't accidentally flip that switch and turn on that fan.  Brilliant...these birds are brilliant!
And here's David just looking cute...
On our porch, we have a big bucket. Well, it's actually a planter, but it's full of balls.  Baseballs, t-balls, wiffle balls, golf balls, you get the idea.  Katherine thinks it's a blast to take them out of the bucket.  This is her signature move.  She flings it backwards...we have balls all over the porch all the time.  Fun, so now we can slip on the balls right after we accidentally turn on the ceiling fan and the poor mama bird has to deal with trying to distinguish her eggs from all the balls.  GREAT.
There are also some baby birds in our yard.  These are NOT the ones from the ceiling fan.  Those are still safely inside their eggs.  John found these while he was working in the yard.  Isn't the little guy cute?
Whew - that's a LOT of pictures!!!

Believe it or not, I actually have a list of 8 more to post!  We had a little family mini-photo shoot this afternoon and actually got some good family pictures!  No bluebonnets for us - the Ferguson Four don't do bluebonnets - but they are good spring pictures.

This is my way of making you come back!!  I'll post them sometime early this week, promise.