Happy Easter 2013

The kids and I drove back to NYC the day before Easter so that we could spend it together as a family with Scott and so that the Easter Bunny could get to work that night!  Easter morning was very joyful for us to see the kids get so excited about their baskets, candy, toys and books.  I slept in a little and when I woke up Scott and Mikey were playing with the Heat Wave Rescue Bot Transformer the Easter Bunny left.  He took it everywhere with him for the next week, including bath time, and bed time and meal time.  It's hit favorite toy of the moment still.  He also received a book called Sweet Land of Liberty, a chocolate bunny and a handful of Easter eggs with one jelly bean in each.  I love that I can fool them into thinking that it is such a treat to have only one jelly bean in one egg!

Katie slept in a little bit too (until 6:30am) and she received some playdoh accessories, a barbie toothbrush (I swear she would brush her teeth 6 times a day if you let her) a chocolate bunny, handful of |Easter eggs and a book called My Year of Firsts (it's a little old for her but she liked the bike and dog on the cover.)

After eating jelly beans for breakfast and a few bites of pancakes, we got dressed in our Easter clothes for Mass and had a nice brunch midday.  I didn't do anything fancy for Easter this year.  Didn't want to stress about it so we were happy having our usual fare and a relaxing afternoon.

Hope you all had a Happy Easter!

Mikey's Easter basket.

The Easter Bunny came! Next year I think the Easter Bunny will start hiding their baskets.

On Easter Morning.

Katie's Basket.

Happy Mikey with his Rescue Bot.

She is happy with all of those jelly beans in her mouth.

Katie in her pretty Easter dress.  She got a fat lip the day before by biting the inside of her lip and hitting the outside of her lip at the same time.  Adds something to her Easter photos. Yes?

She loves to read.

See my lip?

Katie and I Easter morning.

Playing a little before Mass.

Giving Daddy some Easter morning love taps.

Daddy giving Katie some love too.

Katie in her Easter bonnet, which was my Easter bonnet when I was little.

Trying to get a nice photo of both of them together.  Sort of impossible with Katie giving me some attitude here.

Give me a smile Mikey...

....there it is!

Acting silly.

She wore her dress most of the day.  Didn't want to take it off!

Tree climbers

Jamie and Danny have a tree in their backyard that is perfect for climbing and Mikey decided he wanted to climb it after seeing his cousin do it....and Katie of course wanted to do it after she saw Mikey.  Mikey loves to follow and do what the bigger boys do and Katie is such a tom boy and loves to play in the dirt just as much as Mikey does, but she can also be very prissy too.

Katie checking out the tree from below.

Time is just flying by.  He is getting so big.

Katie's turn.

Easter Egg Decorating

This was the first time we colored eggs with both kids.  It was fun and messy and chaotic.  Mikey loved dunking the eggs in the colors while Katie took a more delicate approach with Q-tips.  Katie called each egg "cute" or "beautiful" before she started coloring it.  After it was colored she called it "pretty."

We survived coloring 18 eggs with only one spill. Thank goodness we had extra hands to help otherwise we probably would have had a bigger mess on our hands.

Mikey's dunking method.

Katie examining her "cute" egg.

Mess No. 1

Concentrating on her precise Q-tip technique.

They loved the eggs with their names on them.  

More dunking.  Bryan colored a few too!

All of our colored eggs.  Now to think of some recipes to use them all in!

McDonalds

We aren't ones for fast food so, since I'm not sure when this will happen again I thought I better document it.

The kids first happy meals.

Bailey Puppy!!!!!!

The last time we saw Bailey, Mikey was still in attack Bailey mode, while Katie could have cared less about her.  This time was a totally different experience.  Since my parents were on a 2 week vacation, sunning themselves on some gorgeous islands, my sister offered to watch Bailey while they were gone.  So Bailey and the three of us were at her place for the entire spring break week.

All week long they were very loving of Bailey.  They gave her lots of hugs, kisses, treats, walks, and more hugs!!  Since Bailey likes to sleep a lot she has a lonely puppy dog look to her.  Katie noticed this everyday and would say, "Awww, Bailey sad.  Awwww.  Shh, shh.  It's okay Bailey puppy."  She was so sweet.  She treated Bailey just like she treats her baby dolls.  Mikey was also very protective of Bailey and told her "It's okay" anytime she would bark.  We miss her and can't wait to have her back.  She really is the sweetest puppy dog ever.  Although she is 6, we can still call her a puppy, right?

Trying to take charge and pull her.

Getting down to Bailey level to play.

Bonding.

Both panting.

Bailey really didn't want to play with him.

Giving her lots of rubs.

The Whitaker Center

Mikey had a week off from school for spring break so the kids and I went down to PA for the week while Scott stayed behind and worked.  (Don't worry, I'm making him take vacation time soon!)  We had lots of fun and the week flew by.  One of the days I took the kids to the Whitaker Center.  We got there right when it opened, had lunch at Strawberry Square and back to the Whitaker Center.  By 1 pm I was ready to leave,  Katie was napping and Mikey was still going strong.  He told me he was having too much fun and he needed to play so that got an extra 90 mins. out of me!  There was so much to do and explore and learn... the kids had a lot of fun. I thought initially that it was tailored to an older kids crowd but there were lots of age appropriate things for them to do.  We'll definitely go back again!

press the buttons and watch the balls dance in the air.

A hit for both the kids that we had all to ourselves.

Weighing himself in front of Kids Place.

Inside the ambulance.

A stage to put on plays.  There were buttons that worked the lighting,  music and  a microphone to speak into.  Mikey loved this too!

Katie looking for Nemo in the fish tank.

A working scanner at the grocery store where you could shop for lots of different fruit/veggies/dairy/bread/meats/fish.  Turn the wheel to work the conveyor belt and each item scanned and made a noise as you scanned it.  The kids loved this too!

Playing construction.  You put blocks into the  basket, turned the wheel to lift the basket, take the blocks out and throw them down the shoot.

Weee. She says this on every slide, every time she goes down.

We ran into Jamie and Bryan who were their on a school field trip.  

This table was awesome.  You put the disks on the table, which created an electric pulse with the other disks around it.  They made different noises and you could move them all around. Another favorite!

Part of the circus theme room.

Bikes you could race on if you're legs were long enough.

The water feature we saved for last.  Katie was napping at this point so Mikey played and played till his hearts content.

Manipulating the pipes to make the water go in different directions.

This takes me back many years.  The entrance to the KPMG Harrisburg office. 

Trying to climb up the shoot.

A soft area to tumble and climb on.  

He desperately wanted to be lifted in this but he was too heavy and it wasn't safe.