schickHouse

Easter Day

This year Mama had the hankerin' for rain gear for the children. I used Easter as the excuse to give it to them. Although the melancholy in me yearns for matching boots, jackets, & umbrellas for each child, the stingy German in me won out - scarfing up used umbrellas & boots on eBay and garage sales, and foregoing the jackets except Angela's. I figured her umbrella-wielding skills would not help keep her dry. The children loved the gear, and I was quite tempted to break it out on Easter Eve since it poured most of the day.

   

The chocolate was, of course, a hit. Shelby was excited that her bunny was the "biggest" (actually just the tallest). Angela was the most into eating her candy.

   

Each basket also had a small play thing in it. Shelby wasted no time. She put her amazingly cute pink plastic playing cards to work in a game of Go Fish.

Steve served breakfast, and, I believe, started a new Easter tradition for us... Easter eggs for breakfast! You know, the hard-boiled, colored variety.

      

While I got myself ready for church, Steve took some photos of the children. Too fun!

After church we went to a delicious meal at Grammy & PopPop's. We passed most of the afternoon relaxing together.

Scrambled Eggs

The children "hunted" eggs this past weekend. On Saturday, Shelby found two prize eggs, and she loved choosing blue shmarshmallow peeps and a pack of squishy balls (because there were four in the pack, one for each of them - what a sweetheart!). It was, by far, the coldest and windiest egg scramble ever. Sunday we ventured down to Marticville Middle for a hunt. It was a pleasant surprise that they pack SO many prize slips into their eggs. Almost everyone gets a prize. Shelby got a coupon for 2 free goldfish from That Fish Place (how cool!). Cyrus and Elle Mae each found 3 prize eggs, and Angela picked up 4 prizes. Prizes included bubble bath, candy, and a gumball machine (Cy was stoked!). I think we'll try to hit that one next year again. Oh, and half their eggs were of the real hard-boiled variety. I was quite surprised. Here's some of my favorite pictures from the hunts.

         

      

Easter Egging

Yesterday we seized the empty schedule and decorated our Easter eggs. Each child had a different style for their dozen and a half.

Shelby was her natural artistic self, very deliberate, being careful not to use her eggs up too fast.

Cyrus' style involved drawing with crayon, dip dying (sometimes because of mama's urging), then drying the eggs to prevent too much pigmenting. (Actually, I'm not sure why he liked to dry them.)

   

I especially enjoyed Elle Mae's "lava on top" method and her "pile up" dip dying.

   

Angela was the kamikaze painter: throw it in, mix it up, pull it out (while dip dying hands), bang 'em together.

   

Mama prepared the area well, secured with trash bags to repel water and paint, and many layers of newspaper. So the couple mishaps we had were minor.

I love Angela's palette at this point. Of course it changed as she continued working.

Attack of the tiny hands!

The drama. The passion.

Nearing the end. (You would've thought we tried to dye Shelby's fingers to match the egg cartons!)

I always love the aftermath pictures.

After our artistic explosion, the children settled in to watch Wall-E while Mama got her chance at a dozen. I had fun with my hour, but I forgot to take any pictures of my work. I like the children's better anyway.

Days Gone By

*chuckle* my dad told me about receiving pastel baby chicks for easter when he was little. (my family calls them "pee-pees.") i thought of looking them up today, maybe to get a cute desktop picture. instead i found youtube videos of psychedelic techno multi-colored chicks in the market. ok, i'm definitely not an animal rights type person, but wouldn't this be a permissible tradition if non-toxic dyes were used? (say, kool-aid or vegetable dyes?) i think we're missing out on something here.

Happy Easter!

happy easter to all my (marshmallow) peeps that i am missing today! love you all. this is different, being in a balmy place for easter, away from the majority of our family. but i am happy to have the opportunity for the vacation and blessed to be with some of our family. see you all soon. ~bec.

Snowy Palm Sunday

i dressed the children in their Easter finest yesterday for church since we won't be there for Resurrection Sunday and also since they were singing up front with the other children. so, we're all dressed up in springtime fun, and what's on the car? yes, an inch of snow! aye. o well. steve had to carry the girls across the muddy parking lot, but it was fun to be springy even though it was freezing. and i have an adorable little video of them singing to post. but that's not going to happen before we leave for vacation. maybe later. ~bec.

Easter Greetings

we received an Easter card from my parents today. i announced the arrival to the children and proceeded to read the cute little rhyme inside. cyrus replied, "that is SOOO happy!" i wish i could convey how adorable that was. with his cute little lisp and his tender heart. what a sweetheart. ~bec.