Easter Fun

Happy Easter from the Rowes!

Julia, in typical fashion, was up at the crack of dawn, ready to exuberantly wish me a happy Easter.

JULIA: (bouncing onto my bed) Happy EASTER, Mommy!
ME: Mmmph.  Happy Easter.  What time is it??
JULIA: (triumphantly) Six twenty-two!
ME: Ugh.  Is Madeleine up yet?
JULIA: Nope!
ME: Okay.  Let's wait until she's up before I get up, then you can look for your Easter baskets.

Within thirty seconds, I could hear Julia going into Madeleine's room.

MADELEINE: (bursting into my bedroom) Uh, Mommy??  Julia told me to tell you I'm uuuuuup!

So they commenced looking for their hidden Easter baskets, and upon finding them, carried their loot upstairs to peruse.

The girls each got a Shopkin doll, to their delight.

JULIA: (looking at the box of her Coco-let chocolate doll)  I got COCK-LET!
MADELEINE: (looking at the box of her Bridie Bride doll) I got BIRDIE!

Seriously?  Cocklet and Birdie?  Apparently the excitement of Easter morning renders kids at the top of their grade in literacy into remedial readers.

The Easter basket fun was followed by a church service and an Easter egg hunt on the church grounds.  Madeleine was SO.  DARN.  EXCITED.  about the Easter egg hunt that she didn't once complain about going to church, which was a novelty for her.  Another novelty was the fact that FOR ONCE, she didn't burst into heart-broken tears when someone else found the coveted golden egg.  I think this kid is finally growing up!

At home we had a family Easter egg hunt, and while I usually hide the eggs myself, Ethan lent me a hand this year.  He learned the hard way that you have to make the eggs REALLY OBVIOUS because the kids are just, again, TOO.  DARN.  EXCITED.  to have any brains at all about where they might be hidden.  It kind of didn't matter where either of us hid the eggs, whether in obvious or obscure locations, because we wound up needing to help the kids find them in either case.

For example, Madeleine needed me to literally walk her through the steps of finding a bright orange egg on the handle of our black grill as she stood directly next to it.  She needed similar instruction finding the egg that Ethan had hidden inside the little door that leads to the chimney flue.  If it weren't for us, the kids would have probably left about half the eggs undiscovered and we would have had some very happy squirrels.

Now the girls have candy galore and some new toys and books, and everyone is a happy camper enjoying the sunshine out on our back deck.  Happy Easter to those who celebrate, and happy sunny Sunday to those who don't!