Easter Sunday 2014

My Easter morning started with a peaceful foggy run :) I love running in the morning and wish I could do it everyday...but running before Chris leaves at 6am isn't in the cards for me/us. Weekend morning runs will do for now.

We quick checked our garden before getting in the car for church...

  

SUCKERS!!!!

Who knew when you planted jelly beans that suckers would come up???

We headed to church as soon as we could and it was a lovely service. Pretty music and some dancers which now Linnea would like to do :) Linnea spent most of service with my parents while Harper wandered around in the back and then we played in the nursery a bit too. 

We got some cute pictures of the girls in their bonnets and some fam pics too:

Grandparents and some of their grand girls :)

We headed out to the Meyers in Bay City for the rest of the day and had so much fun egg hunting again, eating, visiting, playing Just Dance and doing some crafts.

 What a beautiful day to be outside!

lots of goodies from the grandparent bunnies:)

We also went for a bike ride/walk down to the local ice cream shop Flat Pennies. We were not planning on it being open so we were super surprised to see that it was. We of course had to get some ice cream then.

Sleeping Beauties and More Easter Excitement

I really don't like waking up the girls for school and daycare...especially when they are sleeping together:

We all made it through that sleepy Thursday and the Twin Cities didn't really get hit with what we are hoping was the final snowstorm...when I realized I would have to wake these two I was secretly hoping for another snow day :) Some northern schools did have another one! CRAZY April snow!

Our weekend filled up with fun again...Friday morning we went to our usual storytime where it was a hat theme and the kids got to try on different hats. Linnea loves the storytime, however Harper prefers to just walk around in the back...at least she is quiet. The afternoon we went to another library and watched...wait for it...wait for it...FROZEN again! We met some friends there and left Harper home with daddy so she could nap. We loved it as much as the first 10 times.

We dyed eggs that evening so we could have our egg hunt at our house Saturday morning. We knew we were going to 8:30 church service in Woodbury on Sunday and knowing us, an egg hunt would not happen before that.

Our egg hunt Saturday morning at home was very fun and the girls worked hard to find all the eggs and their baskets. Linnea liked playing the hot and cold game for help finding her basket. Again, the pictures from this hunt are on my old phones memory card so Chris will have to help me get those...there are some cute ones! The bunny brought both girls a new movie...Pirate Fairy (the 5th Tinkerbell movie) for L and a Sofia the First for Harper which L also likes. They also got some books, sidewalk chalk and of course candy :)

After the hunt it was run time for me and then bath time for the girls. Then Linnea and I went to a friends Frozen birthday party while Harper napped.

They made a cute Olaf craft and you will never believe it but we watched part of FROZEN again!

Very creative "Frozen" Food at the 5th birthday party.

"Elsa and Olaf" watching the movie...they both really performed during Let it Go as well :)

We left the party early in hopes to go for a lil bike ride but it was sadly raining :(
Once it let up we did plant some jelly beans to see what would grow Easter morning...
 

Linnea found a worm while planting as well :)

kite flying :)

My parents give the kids kites in the Easter buckets and Linnea absolutely loves it.  She begged and pleaded me to take her kite flying one evening this week. I was so tired and honestly didnt want to. But she won (as she usually does especially after all my patience and negotiating is gone by the end of the school day) and walked down to the park and flew her kite. I am so glad I did. It made my day so her sooo happy. She was giggling with glee as he kite flew through the air behind her as she ran and ran and ran. It gave me so much joy to see her so happy.

Video to come...hopefully ;)

Easter With Family

We celebrated Easter with my side and my parents birthdays on Palm Sunday. 

Big fun day!

Except it wasn't so fun for Chris and Harper since they spent most of the day at urgent care having tests done to figure out why Harper had a fever of 102.5 under the arm that wouldn't go away and a terrible cough :( She also broke out in a rash the previous Wednesday which I rushed her to the dr for before work/daycare. The dr thought it was just a case of hives since it was gone by the time I got there but I think there is a connection. Back to Sunday, her white blood cell count was so high so they knew it was a bacterial infection somewhere but couldn't find where. After everything was done that could be done (catheter to check for UTI, blood draw, stool sample, throat culture, ears looked at, ect) they gave her an antibiotic shot and said to come back Monday to check her white blood cell count again. So anyways...she did nap well after all that and seemed pretty good by the time we got home. Chris took Monday off and brought her back in.  Her count was still high so another shot was given. Harper spent Tuesday with my parents just to make sure she was okay and then finally returned to daycare on Wed. Whew.

Okay well back to Easter/bday celebration...

post egg hunt!

I helped in Sunday School during the Palm Sunday service and then we headed over to my parents. I got to play Easter bunny and hide the eggs in my parents backyard while papa and Linnea played, mom baked and we waited for Erik and family to arrive. We did the egg hunt first and it was so fun to see these cousins running around finding the eggs...see above picture :) I have some more but they are on my old phone's memory card so Chris needs to help me with that situation and this post will have a few more pictures :)

After decorating some eggs we enjoyed our delicious Easter brunch, watched a show during meal clean up and then headed outside for a chilly bike ride/walk and playing at the playground.

my mom signature bunny bread!

We have more food pictures too...which I know is everyones favorite. I made muffins and jello jelly beans :)

Our parents opened presents when we came and then we were a little hungry after our outside time so we busted out the birthday desserts, sang happy birthday and ate again. We had banana creme pie and an orange dream cake. Orange Dream Cake made by Chris and Linnea...a can of orange pop and vanilla cake mix...so easy and pretty yummy too.

Grandma and Papa and some of their sweet grandkids.

Some Easter Fun...

We started celebrating Easter a week early with an outdoor Easter Egg Hunt at Carver Park in Woodbury. My mom was able to join us but Chris sat this one out thinking he would make it to some of the other lil events of the weekend. We have done this hunt two other times I think but this year was the warmest which also meant the busiest. I think Linnea was a little overwhelmed with the busyness of it and ran around forgetting to pick up eggs. They have each age group go after a certain color egg. I stuck with Harper and my mom went with Linnea who grabbed maybe about 4 eggs but they proceeded to fall out of her basket...so we went home with nothing but she was actually okay with it. I shouldnt say nothing, Harper did get one egg and we ran into some friends who shared two eggs with Linnea. We also got this picture with this not creepy at all bunny:

Hopefully you got the sarcasm of not creepy...I think he is very creepy!

Harper hunting proudly with her bucket and belly :)

 Saturday morning I brought Linnea to a church near our house where a friend of mine is the pastor. They had an adorable, fun and free little Easter party happening. Chris was going to make it to this with us but Harper caught a nasty virus which I will write about more in the next post so he stayed home with her. 

Back to the party...Linnea played a few carnival type games but mostly did crafts, decorated an egg, listened to Mouse's Easter, had a free lunch and then another egg hunt which she was much more successful with :)

Linnea loved making her lil pink egg with crazy hair and purple sock bean bunny...so easy to make...I have a snowman decoration like this and always wondered how it was made. Now I know and we will make these snowmen next winter since I think this winter is finally done.

she really took her time decorating her bag to collect her trinkets in :)

All the eggs were hidden in the room and the kids got to go in with just a few other kids their same age at a time. Much more Linnea's pace.

Linnea and Rylee...my friends daughter who is the same age :)

After this event we ate a quick lunch at home and then headed out to the Woodbury YMCA where we were meeting our playgroup. One of the families in our group had a ton of free swim passes so we swam for our April gathering and it was so much fun. Afterwards we went to the library and got ice cream since the YMCA is connected to those places. It was a GREAT day and wore this girl right out:

such a rare occasion I had to snap a picture :)

We also had some bunny waffles for supper during the week and played with playdough and Easter cookie cutters :)

Froyo and Biking :)

Our spring ended with a lovely day...Linnea and I went to church but Harper stayed home this time since I needed to help in Sunday School so couldn't be with her during the service. She tends to end up in the nursery or walking around in the back of the church.

After church Linnea and I had a little date to get some Fro-Yo...It was on my spring to do list and we had a groupon :)





We went home, had a light lunch and rest time and then headed over to Como Lake with daddy and Harper to take advantage of one of the few "Spring" days we have had...




Linnea is getting more confident and stronger on her bike every time she goes on it and Harper LOVES her lil car. Im sure she thinks she is driving it. It is quite loud but oh well. We had a great family afternoon and ended it with grilling steaks for the first time this season :)

All tuckered out...resting up for back to school, daycare and work week. The days (mornings and bedtimes especially) are such a scramble...we truly enjoyed the more laid back, less stressful days of Spring Break. 

I know more of those are coming this summer so I won't complain too much and we are lucky to enjoy our school, daycare and job.

Snow Bunny and more...

The end of spring break came way too fast but we continued having fun as if the reality of daycare, preschool and work wouldn't come. Not that we don't like we do or where we go, we do I just wish there were more hours in the day I guess :)

We made a snow bunny with hopefully the last snowstorm of the season. We played dress up and did crafts before we got out to make the bunny.

Sometimes Harper just likes to lay and kick her feet up :) So cute.

These colorful eggs below were made with cotton balls and paint but this time we used a clothespin to hold the cottonball instead of just our fingers. It worked much better :)

We made some lovely "stained glass" eggs with coffee filters, markers, water and paintbrushes. Linnea loved opening it up to see what she made. We tried it with water color paint but it was way too light.

 We all went to Spring Celebration on Saturday to start off the Easter festivities. This was a pretty cute bunny I think :) Harper was super interested in the eyes and Linnea as usual ran up to give him a hug and high five.

Linnea dug for some eggs, jumped in the bounce house and did an egg race. There were a few other carnival games as well and face painting. She opted for a pretty egg on her arm this time. Harper played a few of the games too but also just liked walking around and looking :)

I got a haircut that afternoon before going out to dinner with friends :) Nothing major but it sure feels lighter and healthier...4 inches on, thinned out with layers and I have some bangs again :) Thanks Juut for a 50% off coupon in the mail the day before this appt and to Chris for giving me a gift card for my birthday. I ended up only paying $17 :)