The Easter of a Million Pictures

Easter Weekend started on Good Friday.  Spencer was already in Tucson.  It was the 6th, so I made my mom take his picture, but then I forgot to get them from her.  Oh well.  At least I know his 4 year 7 month picture exists.

Elliott wore his Peter Rabbit onesie.  It used to be Spencer's and it was second hand when he got it.  Lots of babies have probably worn this thing 1 time each.

It's really cute.  And totally appropriate for Easter.

On Saturday morning I nursed Elliott around 5 am.  Then we threw him and Ginger in the car and drove to Tucson.  It took him 1/2 an hour to fall back asleep and then, with no traffic, we got to my parents house in 75 minutes.  He didn't sleep nearly enough and it sent him into a tailspin for the rest of the weekend.  He was as cranky as I've ever seen him.

Spencer got up 2 hours after we arrived.  I am jealous of my 4 year old son for how much uninterrupted sleep he gets.

Later in the afternoon on Saturday Spencer and I planted jelly beans in the tree well in my parents back patio.  I got this idea from......wait for it......pinterest.  I told Spencer that I had emailed the Easter Bunny (easter.bunny@yahoo.com) to tell him we would be in Tucson for Easter.  He wrote me back to confirm and told me that you can plant jelly beans the night before Easter for a special treat.

This only works the night before Easter though, so forget about trying it at other times.

In our family, Mom and Dad do the baskets and the Easter Bunny hides the candy.  We got the baskets ready before we went to bed.

Oh, and checked on the buried jelly bean progress.

Spencer woke up at 7 A.M. this morning.  He didn't even wake up that early on Christmas morning.  He came running across the house (where he saw all the candy we the Easter Bunny had hidden) to wake us up.  He was so excited.  And we were so mean and made him wait until 8, because there was no way we were getting up at that hour.  He's such a good kid because he was totally fine to cuddle with daddy until we were ready to go.

The first thing he did was run outside to check on the crop.

He let out a huge gasp.  And then just laughed and laughed and laughed.

Then it was time for baskets.

Spencer got to do Elliott's too.  He's in for a rude awakening when Elliott develops the ability to open his own presents.

Elliott just hung out and watched.

Then it was finally, finally time for the candy hunt.

Elliott hung out and watched.

The Easter Bunny was, once again, pushing an agenda of diabetes and cavities.

Elliott was in a good mood, so before he lost it, we took some pictures.  This is just a small sampling of all the pictures we took.

My mom bought Spencer his Easter outfit.  It makes him look about 12.

After pictures, Grandma and Papa arrived with more presents and candy.

Then Jerry and Lois arrived with more candy and presents.

Then Aunt Karen and Uncle Terry arrived with more presents and candy, but I didn't get a picture.  Perhaps because I was in a sugar coma.

Then I retired to a back bedroom to nurse (there is no public nursing with the supplementer, not like I was a big public nurser without it).  Everyone ate without me.

Then more group photos.

I was just delighted at Spencer for his refusal to smile.  We took 8 pictures.  He looks like this in all of them. 

And then he put out the world's best smiles for the grandparent photo.

All the men (minus Michael) were wearing loud, large print Hawaiianish shirts.

All in all it was a very nice Easter.  I missed my grandma.  My grandma only came to our house like once a year, so it's been easy to not miss her because I don't really associate her with being at home. 

Being at my parents house for a holiday- that's a different story.  All day I kept thinking- I wonder who is picking up Girl.  It was weird to have a holiday without her.  I told my mom that our holidays are kind of lame now.  Everyone is gone.  Nathan and Kendra don't live here.  Nick is out to sea.  My cousins have moved away.  My grandparents are dead.  We need to rent some new family.

I also spent a lot of time thinking about Elliott today- specifically how much more fun he will be next year and how excited I am to see him hunting for eggs with his little basket.  He'll be 15 months next Easter (I googled it.  Sunday, March 31st).  It's going to be awesome.