Easter weekend

I started off Easter weekend by helping out at the preschool in Alice's class on Friday morning. They needed a hand since they were doing the egg hunt and Easter party that day. They had bought a new bounce house and let the kids play on it while the teachers hid eggs in the classrooms. It was too wet to hide eggs outside. So I helped watch the kids while they were on the bounce house and I ended up needing to go inside to help kids climb up the ladder that leads to the connected slide. It was so loud in there and chaotic. Another teacher was there to help me so at one point we switched places and I helped on the outside. Unfortunately helping inside the bounce house was not good for my back because it got tweaked and hurt the rest of the day and weekend. I was still able to do things though. 

Anyway, it was fun watching the kids do the egg hunt. Each student (there are 12 of them) brought 12 eggs to share for the hunt. After the hunt was over they divided them to make sure everyone got the same number of eggs. I loved that idea! Then they had their snacks and treats. Afterwards, they colored some pictures and had a story about Easter. One thing I love about having Alice at this preschool is because it's at a church they constantly talk about Jesus. They even pray at the beginning of class and before they have their snack/lunch. They also start with the Pledge of Allegiance. I'm so glad that we spent the extra money to send her to this preschool. The teachers are great and it's been a very positive experience.

Snack time!

At the end of class they get to play with toys. Alice was building a swimming pool with blocks.

Charlotte had stayed home from school on Friday because she was coughing quite a bit. She was able to go to my in laws while I was at the preschool. We used the nebulizer to help her cough. Fortunately it did help and she was doing well enough to go to horse camp on Saturday. They were able to do some riding before it rained. Charlotte made a picture for her craft at camp.

It's a picture of her riding Lucy, her favorite horse at the horse camp. It's pretty much the only horse they use for riding at the camp. She hung this picture on her wall by her bed.

Curtis was going to build our own barn door for our project but did some calculating and discovered it was actually going to cost more to build than to buy a kit. He had to return the hardware he had already bought. The kit he picked out was unpainted so we primed it that day and finished painting during the week.

We'll get a better shot of it after it's hung up but this was our painting station. I had to park outside for a few days.

Curtis had received a gift card recently as a little bonus from his boss so we decided to use it to take our whole family to the movie theater, something we haven't done in a LONG time. We were excited to see the new Fantastic Beasts movie. Well, most of us were excited. Alice was ready to go after we emptied the popcorn bucket. She went with me to refill the popcorn bucket a couple of times during the movie so that helped. The movie was good but unfortunately, I was very disappointed that they felt like they needed to make Dumbledore a gay man. While they didn't show anything inappropriate, not even kissing, it still made me uncomfortable to watch when hearing about two men who were in love with each other. Hollywood is constantly ruining movies that would have otherwise been good by adding stuff like this to it. And the fact that my kids were all there watching it did not help.

Later that night Curtis was working on priming the door and I boiled some eggs for coloring. Curtis had started watching one of the Avenger movies while painting and brought the movie back inside to watch while coloring eggs. My boys have decided that they are done with coloring eggs. They sat and watched the movie instead. Charlotte and Alice didn't need much help and were really getting into it. I boiled 24 eggs to color and they were so fast that they did all but 2 or 3 eggs. By the time I was ready to paint an egg there weren't any left! Curtis was prepping an egg with invisible spots and told me I could finish it. 

Nikki only got to do one egg also and it's the fancy one in front. She painted dots on it with acrylic paint. She wanted to do more eggs but the little girls were too fast.

OH, I almost forgot to mention that on the way home from picking up Charlotte from horse camp we had the discussion about the Easter bunny and Santa, etc. not being real. Her friend from school kept telling her that they weren't real and so she had been asking us about it. We decided it was time. She took it very well. We even told her that now she gets to be on the rotation for being a helper. That night she helped hide 2 of the 4 baskets (Nikki didn't want one this year). After we told Charlotte she thought about when we were at the cabin and asked if grandpa was Santa. "It couldn't have been Dad because he was up taking pictures of Santa". Yep, she guessed right. Smart girl! I have to admit I am relieved that she knows now because she's getting to the age where she's asking more questions and figuring things out. And I know it's supposed to be in good fun to have our kids believe in these characters but part of me always feels a little guilty for lying about it. But if you think of it as pretending, the same way the girls pretend when they play, then it's not so bad.

We were up around 7:30am Sunday morning. Alice was the first one to look for her basket but it took her awhile. She gave away the location of Garrett's basket. Oops! I think the "Easter Bunny" did really well this year though as far as gifts in the basket. They were given some chocolate and their own craft kit. 

Mustang car model to build and paint. He loves it!

Bead pets. They are bead animals/objects that hang on a keychain.

Alice got a no sew fleece blanket. 

Jack loves Dr. Pepper and Coke so he got a classic Coca Cola car.

They all started their projects before church since we had time. Garrett was probably the most excited about his project. He says he has a new hobby now.

Lots of little pieces to glue onto that tiny engine.

She made a kitten and a lizard.

We went to church like normal that day but the unusual part was after Sacrament Meeting we all stayed in the chapel (after a 5 min break) where there was a video presentation that included church videos of Christ's resurrection and also video testimonies from our missionaries serving from our ward, which were three. After the video we all proceeded to the gym to have a linger longer with a veggie tray, cookies, milk and water. And we just walk around and visit each other. It was nice.

Later in the afternoon we invited a couple of neighbor kids over for the young kids to do an Easter egg hunt. We had about 50 eggs and our girls don't need that many. But at the end we did what the preschool did and divided them up as close as possible. It was an odd number. Then there's no complaining and everyone's happy.

Bryston, Alice, Brooklyn, Charlotte

Our Easter dinner consisted of steak, hot dogs, pasta salad, deviled eggs and green salad. We took advantage of the nice weather and ate outside on our picnic table. It all tasted good!

Even the cats ate their wet food outside with us.

We ended the day with watching Relative Race together in the family room. We brought Alice's blanket from the front room so we could work on it. Charlotte was getting into helping but unfortunately I had to fix several rows where something wasn't quite right and so she decided to just let me do it. Alice didn't care who did it, she was just anxious for it to get made. I guess she's not quite ready for this type of craft.

Alice and Charlotte at least got to pick where the picture adhesives would go on the quilt. She loves it!

It was a great Easter and nice to just spend time together as a family at our own home for a change.