Visiting Ashtabula

Before Easter, I had a day off to be with the kids.  We decided to trek in to Ashtabula for the day, because I knew that Easter Sunday would be a bit chaotic.

We were able to stop and see Aunt Rosilyn and Aunt Carol for a bit.  Shelly and Company made it over too.  I love seeing Aunt Rosilyn holding the little babies.

At mom's house, it was warm enough to let the kids play outside....kicking the balls around and riding the bikes...thought the older ones are getting a bit too big for the bikes and Jude still refuses to use the pedals (like Tam used to).   

Ciearra has lost her first tooth and was delighted to show off the gap.  Baby Elizabeth didn't seem overly-impressed with the proceedings.




I then took the mobile kiddos on a walk over to the carwash...this gave Rick time to hide a couple of dozen plastic eggs all over the front yard.  The carwash was exciting because it has two automatic bays...and people were using them on this fair-weather day.  The boys were really excited to see the soap spritz out of the cars because it looks just like pink slime.  (We had very recently watched Ghost Busters).  Ciearra was slightly less impressed, but did like watching the arms spin the water around the vehicles.

Once back at the house, we gave each kid a bag and the rule of only finding 10 eggs each.

They did great...and only needed a little help finding the last few.  Tamlin was slightly hindered because he had forgotten a belt so he kept having to hitch up his pants.  I particularly liked that Rick hid a purple egg in amongst the purple flowers and a green egg by the green sand-box. 

A good day to build some new traditions and happy memories.

Egg hunt at church

On Palm Sunday, our new church accepted us as members.  We are officially Lutheran now.  I'm just happy to have found a faith home that feels like home.  On this morning, they also had an egg hunt for all the kiddos.  The boys, as usual, had a blast.  Tamlin did a great job of finding eggs and then helping some of the littler kids.  Jude kept wanting to open each egg he found immediately, instead of going on to find more first.  He knew that they held candy!  Luckily, I convinced him to wait just a bit more, until we got home.

But once home, both boys loved prying each egg open to find the treats inside...fruit-snacks, chocolate, jellybeans.

Such simple things make them so happy.

Oh, and Jude has decided that wearing button-shirts is okay, if it is for church.  Brian convinced him they were cool because Tamlin and he wear them too.