EASTER MORNING

Late at night on the eve of Easter, as I got ready for bed and checked on my babies, I found them holding hands in their sleep.

Melt. My. Heart.

Easter morning brought confusion for those babies. Long ago, our associate pastor at Community Presbyterian in Atlantic Beach told me of her Easter tradition - hiding each child's Easter basket with a string tied to the handle, which is then zig-zagged around the house for the child to follow in the morning to find their hidden treats. I stowed that idea in the back of my mind and decided this would be a good year to give it a try. Cora had no idea why I handed her a string. And James simply started reeling it in...

Eventually they got the hang of it though, and collected their little piles of yarn as they went through GG's house.

Jackpot!

What was in the baskets this year? More candy than I care to admit, some Pirate's Booty, a puzzle, and four types of bubbles. Hey, our kids love bubbles.

And suckers...

And candy in general, apparently....

After enough candy consumption to constitute breakfast, us adults decided to make pancakes and sausage anyway, so I set the kids up making colored volcanoes at GG's table. This was the first time Cora was allowed to participate. She did great as far as not trying to eat the baking soda or vinegar, and she didn't spill her cups, but she had a hard time using the dropper properly. I ended up helping her quite a bit (filling it so she could then make the volcanoes herself). James loved this activity, as always, and ended up filling his ENTIRE cookie sheet with colors.

Just like they do at home, the kids spent a good portion of their time at GG's racing cars up and down the hallway. This is some hallway though! The family photos go from end to end and all the way up to the ceiling. James loved asking us who all the "people" were.

After a quick change out of syrup-laden clothes, we took the kids outside to play with their bubbles while Gramma hid some Easter eggs for them. The bubble guns were a HUGE hit!

(We're looking forward to doing the glow in the dark bubbles next weekend when the kids are a little calmer and have more down-time)

Cora did GREAT hunting for eggs! She found more than James on her own and went running wild into the open grass to grab as many as she could before he caught on (while he was searching the hedges). Of course, they both took multiple breaks from the hunt in order to consume more candy. And we totally let them. Hey, there are only a few days each year where kids get to splurge on candy: Halloween, Christmas morning, Valentine's Day, and Easter. We remember the joy of being able to eat whatever we wanted on those days and enjoy our spoils, so even though our kids are still little, we decided to just let them have at it. (And once the day was done, we loaded everything into a gallon size Ziploc bag to take to work, to spread the calories around.)

(He shook that little tree to get the egg down - so cute!)

(Sorry Jay, but she cracked me up feeding you those Jelly Bellies. Just like parents for some reason open their mouths wide while spoon feeding their babies, Cora was showing Jay how to do it!)

(James, on the other hand, was too busy POURING the Jelly Bellies into his mouth to share with Daddy.)

Easter Day festivities to be continued in another blog post...