Easter Celebrations!

The weekend before Easter we kicked off our celebrations by dyeing eggs. James was headed off to Vegas that Monday for work so we squeezed it in Sunday night. Before that we had a much needed restful day around town and around the house. The kids hid Easter eggs. When they broke this one they wanted to keep it to make it a chick puppet:

They spent much of the weekend playing really well together, which is not necessarily a regular occurrence. They’d often start singing various songs about teamwork. About half the time they were doing something productive like working to move the basketball hoop or create a puppet from an egg. The other half of the time the song was a convenient warning for James and I to check in on the trouble the might be creating.

Catherine’s first egg of the year. She did great! No spills this year!

Matthew wanted to make stripes on his so we experimented with rubber bands:

Matthew was pretty proud of this one and wanted to make sure Uncle Matt and Papa saw it! He thinks he found a perfect technique. In the ongoing contest of who makes the best eggs I think the Pozuns are ahead BUT next year it’s going to be tough competition!

We sacraficed one egg to dye in the cleanup bucket. It didn’t turn out too pretty but the kids enjoyed swirling it around!

Unfortunately by the time we got around to egg dyeing, John was tuckered out for the evening. The kids made sure we saved supplies and som eggs for him to dye the next morning.

That Monday I was hosting a photography presentation and as always, Catherine was my little helper as always and helped us set up the photo background, using her little smirk!

John hanging out with Catherine and her buddies who kept delivering cars:

Both kiddos afterward. In the mess of it all I didn’t take my actually camera so fuzzy, smeary cell phone pics was all I had!

That night we headed to drop James off at the airport. The kids sure do love their daddy.

It was another gorgeous spring-like day so since we were in Belgrade we hit up Dairy Queen and our favorite park over there. We had an ice cream toast to celebrate.

The kids played and made new friends while John enjoyed the swings for the first time:

The next morning we walked Matthew to school. We let Matthew practice walking to school by himself past the road crossings.

John seemed pretty pleased with it all:

We even took the fun outside for a while. John is really starting to enjoy his play structure from Mas and Pas and we can’t wait to take it traveling with us!

James missed out on April Fool’s day. While we didn’t really do anything at home, Matthew was thrilled to pull one over on us after school. When we went to pick up Matthew, there was a buzz among the Kindergarteners about having brownies for us. Sure enough, they gave us Brown-Es!

By Thursday I was done with the treadmill and John expressed extreme displeasure with the gym daycare during his nap times, so he joined me for a run. It was apparently what he needed!

While I’m sure James missed us, he had a great time in Vegas and I’m sure work got done at some point! Besides some Vegas snacks for the kids, James brought home these handsome headshots as souvenirs:

Both Matthew and Catherine are big helps with John. Their designated tasks are often going in to “chat” with him when he wakes up and reading to him in the evenings. They also LOVE to hold him, but we still very much need to be around to supervise. So cute!

For whatever reason Matthew still finds it awesome that he held John like he was nursing.

We hit up the area’s summer camp fair at the mall. While I didn’t exactly find any summer camps I feel the kids must do, we ran into lots of friends and there were plenty of kids activities, including face painting!

By Friday we were all ready for James to be home, especially this guy!

Matthew’s teacher had been talking to his class about the MSU Pow Wow and Pow Wow etiquette, so the first thing we did with daddy was take him to the Pow Wow. It was just as impressive as last year.

Pow Wow drums put someone to sleep!

The next day we prepared for the Easter bunny’s visit. The kids came up with some fancy Easter brownies for dessert. John “helped” by shaking the coconut while the big kids helped by licking the bowl and spoons!

Our favorite egg hunt at the Museum was cancelled this year because last year there were apparently some parents who were major jerks. I’m disappointed all around but kind of proud of the museum for not coddling that type of nonsense. We decided a bookstore was the next appropriate place to find eggs and James took the kids to Barnes and Noble’s egg hunt while John napped. Catherine apparently found what she needed in the self-help section!

The loot!

And for whatever reason we’ve been to the mall 2-3 times since the Easter bunny arrived in Bozeman. I can’t for the life of me figure out why I would take the kids to see the Easter bunny other than overpriced pictures (they don’t ask for things right?) and Matthew’s been disappointed every time we didn’t stop. Luckily Barnes and Noble provided this guy for free! Creepy Easter bunny or creepiest Easter bunny?

Easter morning the kids were ecstatic of course! The Easter bunny brought them some Legos and some swim gear!

But mostly they were excited to find eggs!

Matthew was a little befuddled by the location of this one!

A darth vader egg on the entry way light!

When John woke up he joined in on the fun!

His dinosaur basket to match his siblings got lost in the postal system for about a week so he just put out a storage bin. The Easter Bunny was still pretty good to him and brought him a water bottle to match his siblings, new shoes to hold his socks on and a floatie for the pool.

The shoe packaging was delicious!

Since the theme of the Easter baskets was swim gear, we decided to hit up the hot springs and test it all out!

John pretty much just chilled out the whole time:

With a few breaks for cuddles and zherberts from daddy:

He also discovered how awesome his toes are again!

I was also super excited and proud of Catherine who joined me in the outdoor pool while it was SNOWING! It was just above freezing outside and fat, fluffy flakes fell down as we enjoyed the warm waters. We decided not to let happy, chill babies lie and didn’t take John out and Matthew refused to join :(

And what kind of Easter would it be without peeps! Catherine likes them just as much as three years ago and Matthew likes them even more than 5 years ago!

We decided after our all holiday excitement this past year, it was a year to go out for Easter dinner! I had been testing DIY bowties and Matthew was excited to try his on:

While Catherine was just excited to put on her fancy party dress!

Matthew was sending and returning emails (which he is woefully behind on, sorry family!) and went out to take a picture of the snow to eventually send to family. He came back with this hilarious picture:

And this one!

Oh, and of course John had to try on the bowtie too - even if he still needs to grow into his suit a little!

The kiddos all dressed up:

They sure do love their brother!

And a quick family shot before we headed out the door!

We skipped dessert at the restaurant as the kids had been scheming up these brownies for a few days. Chicks sitting on a grass nest with eggs and ice cream to make the grass “stick”. Shockingly, this was after a lot of negotiation as their original plans were even more decadent and nonsensical as they modeled it off a dessert a friend had brought over!

It’s a D- for food photography but Matthew was super excited about it and it was a delicious way to end the holiday!