"Those mean guys…"

 Easter aka "When those mean guys hurt Jesus and put him on the cross with those sharp things in his hands and toes and they bleed!  And Jesus DEAD!"

That was an interesting car ride with Rudy on the way home from Pre-K - the day they watched the Passions of the Cross, or I can only assume.  He was so animated telling the story and was obviously really upset about it.  It really stuck with him.  He would tell anyone he saw about it and kept bringing it up randomly throughout the week.  One night at dinner he said, "Mom, those mean guys going to hurt me??"  Such big topics I wasn't expecting to cover so early! 

We had a busy Easter morning with our baskets and eggs to find from the Easter bunny, special pancakes made by Dad, mass, and Easter lunch and dinner (and more eggs and baskets!) at each of the grandparents' houses...

Bubs, trying on the ears the Easter Bunny brought

So proud of her new bike!  "Just my size, Mom!"

Fun for all!

Ben's special egg...

Veggie Straws - Ben's fav!

Egg hunt and Grandma and Grandpa Cicci's after mass...Benners had to sit this one out while he did some serious napping

The look of disappointment when her "egg" was actually a golf ball

Silly kids :)  

Yay!  A family picture!!  (It's REALLY hard to remember to do this!)

And on to Gran and Papa's for another egg hunt with the Sames'!

I thought I had a picture of this, but Rudy was cracking us up during the egg hunt... he agreed to wear his church clothes, even though his pants were a little big.  We didn't think it was a problem - I mean, really, he wears them so infrequent, might as well get a couple years out of them and buy them big, right??  Except when he is running ans fast as he can to get the eggs and they keep falling down!  Poor guy ran more than once to an egg with his pants around his ankles because he wasn't going to let ANYTHING slow him down!

Attempting to fly their new kites..

And yes, Ben was there... my efforts at getting a picture of him were not so great!

Another fun holiday in the books!

Spring Chickens

 

 Gearing up for Easter, we did some of our favorite Spring activities!...

We took a trip the Farm and Home Supply, where they sell live chicks.  Mom and I stumbled across them a couple years ago, and we've gone back around this time of year every year since! 

We had some extra fun at the cardboard cut-out they had this year...until Avery got her head stuck like so!  She started to panic, and then we all did, and eventually had to lift the entire thing up at just the right angle to get it off.  It was quite a production! (And funny after she was out!)

(This was several months ago, and just last night Rudy said, "Hey remember that one time we went to that one store that had all those baby chicks??"  His random memory amazes me!)

We took the kids to see the Easter Bunny.  Rudy and Avery were very proud of themselves for not crying, as were we, but Ben lost it!  So we snapped a couple quick pictures and were out of there!  (I'm seeing big potential for next year..)

But not before checking out the rides!

I'm not really sure why this picture is in here, but Rudy and Avery spent a lot of time making bridges for each other and Ben loved being right by the excitement!

We've been doing our best to get outdoors as much as possible once the weather warmed up!  I've been SO tempted to splurge on a triple stroller, but it's a serious splurge and reviews are all horrible, that I just can't get myself to do it.  So in the meantime, someone has to ride on the foot rest of the double :) 

We have been on what feels like a "park crawl" - the kids love checking out new parks and packing lunches.  They get really excited about picking things out and using their lunch bucket of choice.  We usually pack them early, spend an hour or so at the gym, then head to the park for playing and lunch.  

And we get super lucky when Ashley joins us to play, too!

Caught in the act again, darn it!

Ben is so funny!  He loves to laugh and make others laugh.  We started noticing it pretty early on...

Like the day I noticed a veggie straw on his head.  At first I didn't think anything of it, just grabbed it off his head, and kept on with whatever I was doing in the kitchen.  The next time I saw it, I blamed one of the others for putting veggie straws on his head.  And THEN I caught him putting it on his head himself, with a big cheesy grin!  Oh, Bubbers...

We also had fun at Rudy's Pre-K egg hunt.  The room mom's used our extra money to buy, fill, and hide eggs one morning for the kids.  They had a great time running around finding them!

Mr. Ben is so happy to have his own swing this year!  

 In order to add it, we had to take down the hanging bar.  It was just thrown to the side, until Nolan and Rudy (very creatively) attached it to the bench swing to make handles to pull the swing. 

And boy did that add lots of entertainment!

Dawn and Kate made a visit (who we are always so happy to see!!) right before Easter.  We spent part of the morning dying/decorating easter eggs...

The anticipation of the eggs getting done and the colors dissolving was rough!

And Rudy and Avery helped me bake and decorate cupcakes for a treat on Easter Sunday.. I think they turned out quite beautifully!