Easter Weekend

We kicked off our Easter weekend on Friday morning. Melissa came over and helped us dye eggs for the first time. Ben was impressed with all of her different dying techniques - especially marbling and the half and half trick!!

The kids preferred to use their hands to dip the eggs instead of a spoon, which led to some interesting colored fingernails for the remainder of the weekend!

Picking out the perfect sticker takes some serious concentration! Ella preferred to decorate herself with stickers while she waited for her eggs color.

Ben showing off his marbled egg.

On Saturday, we helped Maddie celebrate her 21st birthday! It was here the Ella discovered Jelly Beans for the first time. Luckily for Ella, she was looking particularly cute that day, and there were many people willing to refill her cup when Mommy wasn't looking!!

We spent Easter Sunday with the Drake family. All 11 cousins made it through Mass and then we headed home for the much anticipated Easter Egg hunt!!

We lucked out with gorgeous weather and the kids were able to run off some of the candy that was consumed. There was an insane amount of sugar ingested that day. At one point, Ben and a couple of his cousins were discovered hiding behind a chair gorging themselves on Aunt Sarah's *previously* unopened Easter basket!!

Ben loves this little scooter. He spends a solid couple of hours on it each time we go to EP. He pretends to drive his "little kids", which are his imaginary Mickey Mouse and company friends, around to different places on it. His knees are also grass stained from his wrestling matches with his cousins. I guess that after all of the help he gave me baking and decorating for Easter, he needed to release some testosterone!!

Macaroni Soup

On Friday night, the church where Ben attends preschool hosted a Macaroni Soup performance. We had dinner at Paige's house and then headed over to see the show together. The show was great and the kids had a lot of fun singing and dancing along with Miss Carole and Alvin! Ella was just excited to be included with the preschoolers and imitated whatever she saw them doing! Ben and Paige even took home autographed cds!!

On Saturday morning, we headed to Gridley for the First United church's Easter egg hunt. Since the weather was cold and rainy, they did everything indoors. Over 3,000 eggs were hidden, so the kids easily filled their bags without getting run over or trampled by other kids!

Just in case the kids did not get enough sugar after the hunt, cookies and lemonade were provided!

Wish this post was titled Success!

Nearly 3 weeks ago, we began weaning Ella off of her pacifier. Thursday morning at 5 am, I caved and gave it back to her. Carl says that I let Ella win, however I like to think of it more of a compromise. She can only have it at nap and bedtime now. It has been three weeks of very little sleep at night, cat naps or no naps, and 2 tired kids since Ella's new 6 am wake up time was WAY to early for everyone! And it really didn't help that 4 days into it, Ella got a nasty cold which turned into a nasty double ear infection! Of course, I was unsure if I had made the right decision immediately after I gave it back, but Thursday afternoon she took a 3 hour nap and then when I put her to bed that night, I heard he happily chattering on the monitor, "Love you Mommy, love you Daddy, love you Ben". All was finally right in her world again! I took these pictures the day before we started this whole process - they were supposed to be the last of her with her paci!

This is the face she made when I told her that she was too old for a pacifier!

The "Bottle Fairy" also came for a visit. We put all of Ella's bottles into the colorful box before bed one night and in the morning the kids found that she had left a Ruby doll and Goodnight Max book in the their place. Ella really didn't know what was going on, but Ben was super excited - even at 6:15 in the morning! At least the bottle has been successfully dropped. And I also know of a superb orthodontist in town should the need arise!!