No hop in your step

The first thing I think of on Easter Sunday is not Easter baskets or egg hunts, but going to have Easter dinner at Camp Gooey's!  Despite the horrible weather and Maison not feeling well we wouldn't miss it.  Maison was greeted by oodles of presents and another Easter basket so I thought she would start to feel better but she just really isn't herself today...definitely missing the usual hop in her step.

"Look at that!  Mickey Bowling."  

Checking out my Easter basket from Nooey & G'Daddy

"Can I open this?"

HAPPY EASTER!

Multi-media Easter Bunny

The Easter Bunny left Maison with all kinds of non-sugary goodies: Books, DVDs, coloring books, stickers, playdoh, silly putty, and all kinds of fun things.

Minnie Mouse waiting on Maison to wake up.

"Oh my gosh...look at this!"

Checking out a Max and Ruby coloring book...

"The Easter Bunny knows I need glasses to see my new movies!"

Reading Dr. Seuss:

The Easter Bunny certainly has gone multi-media. I remembered when he just brought candy and toys...boy have times changed!

Empty Handed

We took Maison to the neighborhood egg hunt this afternoon.

What better way to wait for the egg hunt to start than a visit with the Easter Bunny?

Lined up and ready to go!

Mommy explaining you didn't need to open each egg before getting another one.

Now they got the hang of it!

"Look, Mommy...I got one!"

A basket full of eggs!

We opened all the eggs and every one had candy in it. James was very happy because he got all of Maison's candy and she went home completely empty handed, literally! The neighborhood asked that the kids turn in the empty eggs so she didn't even get to keep those to play with. I got her all dressed up for this???

Hop, Hop, Hop...

The Easter Bunny (E.B.) brought Maison books, coloring books, and crayons because he heard that she could still not have sugar.

But Nooey is more resourceful than E.B. and when Maison got to Camp Gooey she got a Sponge Bob basket filled with sugar-free Easter cookies and candy. So when everyone was eating our traditional Krispy Kreme donuts for breakfast Maison was enjoying her "sweets".

After breakfast, we took Maison to the egg hunt at my grandmother's church in Murphy. It was not very organized. Pretty much the older kids ran out of the back doors when church was over and started grabbing all the eggs. Maison was more interested in the chaos than picking up eggs. Considering she had her own private egg hunt waiting for her at Camp Gooey, I knew she would have plenty of opportunities to pick up eggs.

Egg Hunt at Murphy First Baptist:

Naked chocolate egg eating:

Camp Gooey Egg Hunt:

We spent the afternoon chasing bubbles from the super bubble blower and finished the day with our traditional Easter feast that my mom makes every year.

HOPPY EASTER!!

HOP!

Adam bought a groupon months ago for 4 Studio Movie Grill tickets thinking we would have no problem using them. Uh I think the last movie we saw in the theater was Avatar...I'm not kidding. I wasn't the least bit surprised when he told me today that they all four expire on the 28th. So we decided to take Maison to see Hop. I know that it is not an animated movie and that an 18 month sitting in a dark movie theater for an hour and a half may or may not go well but we decided it was worth a try since the tickets were going to expire anyway. We agreed up front if me made it through 45 min of the movie we would consider it a success.

When we got in line to get our tickets, (aside: why when you purchase things via the iphone you still have to wait for a paper version. what's the point of paperless if the end result is not paperless? where's the green side of this?) Maison began hysterically crying. She would not calm down. Adam took her outside to see if that would help....nope. This was off to a great start. The previews had already started so we had to go in and get a seat.

Once in the theater, Maison was mesmerized by the large screen. She sat in Adam's lap, ate her crunchies, and drank her milk. She didn't make a peep the entire first half. The second half she was so into the movie she even hollered out cries of joy! Maybe now we'll make it to movies more often...just the kid ones.

Egg Hunt Competitor

Maison achieved another first today...she mastered her first egg hunt. We took her to our neighborhood egg hunt thinking she would just grab an egg or two and be happy to sit and play with them. Apparently you can have a competitive spirit at 18 months old.

She was raring to go as we approached the registration table.

Sizing up the competition. I wonder where she gets this competitiveness from!

I literally had to hold her back until they said it was time to go.

I have no idea how she actually understood the point of the game was to gather as many eggs as possible and considering she was competing against mostly 3 year olds she did quite well.

Mommy helping me sort through my eggs:

Unfortunately, all her eggs were filled with candy which she still can't have but she was over joyed to just play with her plastic eggs.

Daddy congratulating me on a good hunt:

She was not too keen on the Easter Bunny but had a much better reaction than when we tried to take a picture with him at Willow Bend.

So for a first egg hunt it was quite a success!

Hoppy Easter!

It is tradition that we have Krispy Kreme donuts for breakfast on Easter morning. You know, got to get a good base of sugar before you snack on your Easter basket goodies all day. My parents and Shari came over with the KKs and the Easter baskets my mom had made for Adam and me. Yes, we still get custom made Easter baskets that are tailored with your candy preferences. Maison had a wonderful first Easter...a visit from the Easter Bunny, dinner at Nooey's and G'daddy's, and family pictures. Unfortunately the Easter egg hunt had to be cancelled because of the rain.

Easter Bunny heard Maison liked Elmo...

      

Family Pics before it started to rain...

         

Family Pic during the rain...

Hippity, Hoppity, Rip-offity

After my plans for Easter dress picture taking went bust on Friday, on Saturday we decided to take Maison to the Shops at Legacy to see the Easter bunny (here on out referred to as EB). I know that most infants are terrified of EB and Santa Claus but thought we would give it a shot. It was a beautiful day and the shops are outside so we thought it would be a nice outing regardless of how the bunny pic turned out.

I had a hair appointment at 4:00 so we only had a small window of time to visit EB and eat lunch so we had already agreed if the line was long we were going to abort the mission. When we arrived at Shops we were pleasantly surprised to find parking, locate EB, and get in line. The line seemed rather short to me but I've obviously never had children until now so what did I know.

When we were 2nd in line, one of the EB assistants (here on out referred to as EB-ette) handed us a sheet with pricing info, etc. For the low low price of $48.95 you could get three 5x7 of your child with EB. WTF? I know I've never been in the position to actually buy these kind of photos until now and possibly with inflation I was a little off on how much I thought it would be but ~$50 seemed rather high to me. So I asked if we could just "see the Easter Bunny" and was informed that they were PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHERS and thus this was a picture taking endeavor not a meet and greet. I was further informed that most infants don't do well with EB and need to be 'backed into' sitting on his lap and if it didn't go well they could shoot the baby in a wagon filled with live bunnies...which per EB-ette really made a great keepsake for mommy, grand-mommy, etc.

Adam politely said it was up to me, to which I politely told EB-ette we would come back another day when Maison was in her Easter dress (come on...it's a white lie). Uh, why on earth would I spend $50 on a picture that my child will most likely scream through or a picture featuring live bunnies that may give my child rabies? Is there a reason EB-ette couldn't have informed us of the procedures and cost BEFORE we waited through the entire line? In the future, I'll be skeptical of a really short line and will definitely take my EB business to Willow Bend where EB meet and greets are perfectly acceptable!

Poor Man's Arboretum

Last Friday I had big plans to take a vacation day so that I could take Maison to the Dallas Arboretum to see "Dallas in Bloom" and to take pictures in her Easter dress. Trying to pose a 5 mo old for pictures when she can't sit up unassisted is pretty much impossible by yourself so Shari agreed to take the afternoon off and go with me. Shari does NOT take off work very often and when she does it has to be really worth it; so I was very flattered that she had agreed to go with us. Somehow in the almost 30 years we have lived here, Shari has never been to the Arboretum and I have been about 10 times. I'm not sure why that is...

So we planned to meet for lunch around 1:00 and then head to the Arboretum. Unfortunately, Maison planned to get sick several times, each time requiring a change of clothing and resulting in us not arriving at lunch until 2:00. I am always late but an entire hour late is a little much even for me. Needless to say, Shari was not very happy with me when we arrived.

To make the afternoon just perfect, Maison decide to not take her bottle and scream through the latter part of lunch drawing stares from the "parkies" that were eating on the patio next to us. I was mortified, frustrated, and starving considering I didn't get to eat much of my lunch and the morning's festivities prevented me from eating prior to that. We headed to the Arboretum around 3:00...a good 1 1/2 hours later than planned.

On the way, Shari needed to drop off her new car to get the bluetooth phone system set up. The service rep said it would only take 5 min and we should just wait. 45 mins later I was still sitting in the parking lot with a screaming child in the car with me. At 4:00 I decide the Arboretum was a no-go considering they closed at 5:00 and Maison was scheduled to eat again at 5:30 which was impossible to make it home from Dallas in rush hour if we were to leave at 5:00.

So I decided we should just go take pictures in Shari's neighborhood considering I had to be on my way back home by 4:30. We changed Maison into her Easter dress in my car, loaded up the stroller, and walked a couple of blocks to the retirement homes that had the best flowers. Shari and I walked through their flower beds, plopped down Maison in her bumbo chair, and started shooting as many pictures as we could before she cried, drooled on her dress, or got sick again.

We were quite a sight...both of us crawling in the flower beds to pose Maison, getting our jeans covered in mud, while my butt was hanging out as I attempted to take pictures. After what we had been through so far nothing was going to stop me from getting at least a few good shots. Not even a resident who had to fight her way through all our stuff we had politely left on the sidewalk that was the pedistrian entrance to her complex.

Here is the "Poor Man's Arboretum" in all it's glory:

     

Check out the "Private property" sign a few feet behind my head ;o)

     

     

     

Of course HK had to make the trip:     

    

Give me that tulip!

When we got home I found a nice surprise...Maison has a tooth! Yes, the poor little thing had a tooth that had already broken through her gums. No wonder she was so fussy!

Hoppy Easter!

As you can tell I'm majorly behind on posting since it is the end of May and I'm just now posting about our Easter festivities...

Easter at my parents is all about how much sugar and junk food can you possibly consume on one day.  We start every Easter out with donuts from Krispy Kreme.  They cannot be from Dunkin or from any local donut store...they HAVE to be Krispy Kreme.  This goes back to when we lived in Atlanta and there weren't any donut stores other than KK so since I was about 3 yrs old KK has been the donut standard in our house.  

Adam and I picked up the donuts on the way to my parents house where we were greeted by masses of Easter decorations and Easter baskets for each of us.  You can spot Adam's Easter basket first because his always has a white chocolate Easter bunny because he is the only child that likes white chocolate.  You can then pick out mine and Shari's because they are always exactly the same.  This year we knew Shari's right away because she had already started in on her peeps before Adam and I even got there.

After our Krispy Kreme breakfast we all sit around and eat candy from our Easter baskets or the bowls of M&Ms my mom always has in the kitchen while my parents finish making the Easter spread which very much resembles Thanksgiving.  My parents make a turkey and all the Thanksgiving side items on Easter.  Easter brings a Honey Baked Ham and different desserts but otherwise very similar.  

Shari, Adam, and I watched Wall-E while we waited for lunch to be ready.  We thought it was ok, but were completely unaware there were so few words throughout most of the movie.  We had our big lunch and then watched the Dark Knight.  Adam and I had already seen it, but Shari and my dad wanted to watch it.  Unfortunately Shari slept through most of it...how can you sleep through an action movie in a media room that is so loud it shakes the walls?  I'm sure it was 'turkey overload' and had nothing to do with the wine ;oP