easter

our easter celebrations began last wednesday (the 4th) at the whale park:

the kids played:

while the adults hid eggs:

and then my camera died, so we back went home to hibernate.

ha! i wish. my camera really did die but we stayed and i took some high-quality pictures with my magnificent dumb phone. 

ready to go:

all done:

and enjoying the spoils:

luckily for the kids i hadn't procrastinated getting their loot this year so not having a car didn't make a difference on the easter front: 

lucy got a kick out of the "carrots that walk" and likes coloring in the batman book "because it has two-face". both girls enjoyed the m&m's and thought the movie was too scary. all in all, a success.

hazel was sick so grant stayed home with her while lucy and i headed out to the first hour of church, which was full of beautiful easter music. once home again, i made hot cross buns. then we all took a nap (well except grant who read). after our naps, grant and i hid some eggs for the final extravaganza:

it didn't take the girls too long to find them all (the one grant hid in the chain and the one i hid in the cat's plaything took the longest). 

and finally, after dinner we dug into the hot cross buns (i used half all-purpose and half whole wheat flours 'cause that's what i had; and i added cardamom to the cinnamon and sugar; oh and no raisins were added; and instead of an egg white in the icing, i used meringue powder. and they were tasty):

hope everyone had a great easter too!

blue bell, zoobilee, easter, the beach & mothers' day

get ready for a catch up post! i've been meaning to do this for ages (before it got as long as it did) and since grant has taken the car to be fixed, this is the perfect opportunity.

way back on april fool's day, the girls and i went with some friends up to the blue bell ice cream factory:

while we were waiting to get in, hazel tried to get some milk to make her own ice cream (she happily remembered that "milk comes from cow bums"):

lucy wandered off to brainstorm with the big wigs:

and then we made it inside:

after the tour we all enjoyed our scoops of deliciousness. i had caramel kettle crunch (popcorn in ice cream sounds wrong but it was soooooooooooooo good! i'm dying to have that flavor again but its not being made this summer *sob*). hazel enjoyed cake and ice cream:

and lucy had krazy kookie dough:

april 7th was the zoobilee:

the girls were each given a "passport" that needed to be stamped in different areas of the zoo:

the carousel was free so we waited in line:

ever wondered who lucy looks like?

hazel picked a cougar to ride on. ewww:

i'll be doing my best to never let that happen again. (heh heh heh) lucy picked a turtle:

not that you can tell from this picture. after the dizzy ride, hazel and lucy received their last stamp and claimed their prize:

easter festivities began on the 21st with an egg hunt:

so many friends! and so much candy:

easter sunday dawned with a bucket for each girl filled with sunglasses, coloring books and posters, and matching dresses (i never took a proper picture of them together in their dresses. oops). after church, we had dinner with some friends. i made hot cross buns and roasted asparagus. once dinner was over, we had another egg hunt:

then the adults did an egg toss. hazel took the camera and actually snapped a picture of the first egg casualty:

yep. i'm that super nice person who laughs hysterically when you get slimed by an egg. (sorry, emily!) grant and i came in second. so, anyway. easter was nice.

we headed to the beach the first saturday grant didn't have to go to school (30th):

as you can see it wasn't a pretty, white-sands-blue-water sight. but it was still fun times. we started with lunch:

and face-making:

before hiking through the dead kelp to play in the mud and waves:

we spent a few hours playing and then decided to splurge on dinner at the rainforest cafe. the girls were spoiled, not only did they get the volcano dessert but there was also a woman making balloon animals:

mothers' day was great. grant gave me a new yoga mat and gym bag (both were sorely needed). hazel kept drawing pictures of "happy mommy with a love heart":

usually i'm drawn with a sad face because i'm trying to rescue hazel from various villains. this was refreshing:

lucy gave me some pretty flowers:

and potty training duties. it's been a week and a half. she's doing really good and rarely has #1 accidents (except for today). i put her in a pull-up when we go to the gym, store or when she takes a nap and she usually keeps them dry. she struggles with #2 but we're further along than i thought we'd be. count down to zero diapers is ON! 

easter-ness

i've been too lazy to post about our easter until now. it was nice. saturday night i finally did the resurrection eggs lesson for the girls. lucy enjoyed grabbing and opening as many eggs as possible. hazel listened pretty well but didn't seem to really get it. after going over the main points several more times, grant and i finished with at-least-we-tried sighs. lucy and hazel quickly ran off to play. a moment later, hazel returned with a potato head and excitedly told us, "guess what?! and all the potato heads will be awive and get resurrected wike jesus! isn't that great?!"

easter morning came and hazel found that the easter bunny had left her and lucy some surprises:

i made the girls some stuffed easter eggs. they were pretty easy and i did most of the work on saturday (grant helped me by stuffing them while i sewed them close). they turned out cute:

they also got a little chick sitting in it's half shell:

we went easy on the treats since they'd already had an easter egg hunt. grandma sent some beatrix potter books for the girls and grant read them all to hazel while i finished making breakfast (and lucy tore things apart):

for breakfast we ate hot cross buns:

lucy enjoyed hers:

twice:

hazel just picked at the icing, surprise. you can see the poorly grown grass here. i guess i shouldn't say 'poorly grown' since it did grow well, i just didn't plant enough seed:

(the third from left was mauled by lucy) i was a little sad it didn't turn out quite as i expected. still, i got over it. after breakfast, grant went to get the stroller from the car to run the girls to a park but came back almost immediately to show us what he found on the stair railing:

maybe the easter bunny is really a frog? grant said that he'd do the post about that cute little guy so i'll probably do it tomorrow.... anyway, we had our good friends, amanda and matt, come to dinner:

[you should check out amanda's blog. she is posting a picture every day for a year with monthly themes. she takes gorgeous photos (like ours for our christmas letter) and even posted pictures of the girls not too long ago: lucy & hazel]. back to easter dinner: i made the most delicious italian drip beef sandwiches. i used my crock pot but otherwise followed the recipe. y.u.m. for dessert i made these flower pot things (if you've been clicking on the links [and i hope you are. it takes time, people, and i do it for you!] you'll have noticed that all of the recipes came from the dear pioneer woman. don't worry, i'm not a fan.....like, at all.):

hazel was really excited but didn't eat more than a couple spoonfuls. weird. we were all trying to talk her into eating more, maybe we were over selling it? lucy, on the other hand (i think i use that phrase a lot....but she and hazel really are complete opposites), waisted little time admiring the pretty flower:

and dug right in:

she enjoyed every last drop or at least every drop that wasn't lost on her lap/her face/the tray/the wall:

and the sugar didn't affect her in the slightest: