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.

Mom Sale and Visiting

I had the weekend off, so I convinced Shelly and family to visit for the weekend so that I could sell stuff at a mom sale.  It didn't take much bribery because I told Shelly should would be able to shop :-)  At this sale, I rent the space, and then could price my items for whatever amount and sell / bargain as warranted.  My goal was to off-load 2T and 3T clothes, as well as younger-aged toys.  Success.  I came home with about 1/3rd of what I hauled in, mostly the fall/winter clothes, which I might try to sell again in the fall. Shelly bought many items for both of her girls...lucky duck.  There are always so much more girly clothes than boy clothes at these sales.

And I got to play with my new little niece!  She's such a cutie and very seriously watches the world.

What a sweetheart.

Ciearra, Tam, and Jude spent most of the weekend playing with the clothes in the dress-up bucket. The ninja costumes were favorites. (This is Tamlin and Elizabeth)

With the family up here, I was able to loan them our back-pack carrier.  I remember scoring an awesome deal on this carrier when Tamlin was born.  We had no qualms about the purple color, and thought it was fairly gender neutral.   Both our boys loved, LOVED, riding high up and being able to see everything.  We used this at festivals and fairs and for hiking around.  I hope Shelly and Rick get to use it just as much over the next couple of years.

Here's Elizabeth at 5 months, Tamlin at 5 months, and Jude at 6 months.

Snow Ninjas

Will winter ever end?!  It is snowing again.  AGAIN. 
Of course, the boys wanted to run around in it....with paper-towel tube swords...because they were ninjas.
I hope we don't get too much and I hope it clears up some more before the sales this weekend.

Decorating Easter eggs

Oh it is time for Easter egg dying!  I love this tradition :-)
I love thinking about the times we dyed eggs with Grandma Elsie (all gazillion hard-boiled eggs).  I love having Tamlin wear the old apron that Aunt Rosilyn made.  I love looking at all our eggs from past Easter times.  I love the mess and the smiles.

We blow out our Easter eggs because none of us care for hard-boiled eggs.  We use the yolks to make a breakfast bake or popovers.  This lets us keep some of our favorite eggs from one year to the next.  At hand, I think we had 8 eggs for each kiddo and two for us adults.

This year, I let the kids try using rubber cement on some eggs.  Rubber cement...the glue that looks like snot.  I still have the same bottle of the glop that I used back in high school!  Hard to believe it has survived so many moves.  Tamlin used it to dribble across two of his eggs.  Jude was dubious of the stuff and declined.

We also tried washi tape.  Tamlin had fun making stripe patterns with the tape.  Jude had fun just working the scissors to cut the tape.  We had stripes and squares and random patterns. 

We didn't have the typical dye with vinegar this time.  Instead we had paste dye that got rubbed on the eggs while in plastic pouches.  This gives them a swirly sparkly effect. 

We dyed them once and let them all dry.  We then took off the tape / glue and dyed many with a second color to give a cool tie-dye effect.  I'm not sure if the dye pouches were any less messy than the traditional method, my boys still had colored fingers at the end of the session.  I think they we all had just as much fun.

Here are some of our finished products.  The boys thought the pink and orange ones were the best.  Brian liked how the rubber cement swirls looked when the glue was rubbed off.  I think they all came out very cool.

Funny...A little humor to brighten the day.