Easter!

I make a horrible Tooth Fairy. I make it a few steps into the room and immediately burst into peals of laughter. True story. Or worst  yet, as I’ve shared before, I forget to replace the tooth with money, let alone swipe it.

I’m a bit better at the Santa thing, though forget about being any of the Three Kings… again, I can’t seem to get the grass out of the shoe box and all over the house without making some kind of commotion. It’s a miracle That Child still believes in anything make believe.

Add Easter Bunny to the list of characters I am not able to emulate in any way, shape, or form. I went to bed so late last night I figured I’d wake up early and put the kids baskets together, spread confetti everywhere (Brooks thinks it’s magic left behind by the Easter Bunny, I think it was a pain to clean up, but hey…), get myself dressed and ready for the sunrise Easter service at Tanja’s church, and then wake up the kiddos.

Except that I didn’t count on Brooks being so excited about the Easter Bunny coming to visit that he woke up three times last night to check the house to see if he could find his basket ( which the aforementioned bunny hides every year). That third time awake? Five minutes after I got up at four am. And I still had to go to the car and get all the supplies for the baskets. And everything was so loud and crinkly. Torture. Thankfully I was so worried about messing up something the kiddos were so excited about that I didn’t even come close to giggling, not once. I was more petrified than anything.

But it got done, the kiddos had fun searching for their baskets and exclaiming over the messy bunny’s mess.

The rest of the day was amazing. The Sunrise Easter service was beautiful and the service later that morning was wonderful. Tanja’s church is growing on me 🙂

My foot has been less than stellar lately. That, coupled with the lack of sleep as a result of my painful foot, had me wishing for a nap after church. But I had the mess the Easter Bunny had left behind to clean up and activities to coordinate for the kiddos.

I kept the whole thing low key since I was feeling so crummy.

We had an indoor Easter Egg hunt because Brooksy enjoys finding the eggs around the house. I try and hide them really, really well so that it takes awhile, enough for the excitement to run it’s course. Both kids were ecstatic since this year I did things a bit differently. I figured instead of stuffing the eggs with candy, since they’d done that at three egg hunts already, that I would place stickers in some of the eggs, which the kiddos would then redeem for a prize. That made the kiddos really excited and pumped up. I couldn’t hid the eggs fast enough for them.

Afterwards we sat down for some art. I had seen a blog post a few days ago about using shaving cream and food coloring to create dyed Easter eggs with a marbled effect. Shaving cream and kids is just fun so I knew it would be perfect, plus setting up was a breeze. The kiddos went nuts laying down shaving cream into a large platter, added drops of food coloring and then used a chopstick to run the colors together in streaks. They then rolled their eggs in the fluffy stuff and laid them out to dry. Over time the shaving cream disappears and leaves behind a cool, dyed egg.

Obviously we can’t pull out shaving cream without playing with it, so after the kids were done I let them spray a whole bunch on the table and let them go at it. I’m not quite sure my mother invisioned so much messy art occuring on the table she was gifting us. I wonder if she would have still given it to us 🙂

We headed outside for the kiddos to stretch their legs and lungs and play in the sun. I’m being terrible at posting links today, but I had also seen a blog post about a egg rolling variation game. Instead of just rolling the eggs this game entailed drawing three circles on the ground, within each other, each designated with different points, in which the egg was supposed to land, thereby awarding points to the rollee. Such a super simple thing and yet the kids were excited and couldn’t get enough of it. Kind of reminded me of the simplicity and joy of boxes and kids, bubble wrap and kids, balloons and kids… you all get the gist.  At first the game was kaput because the wind was messing with the rolls, so we fixed the whole thing by stuffing the plastic eggs full of candy.

And after a few rounds we loaded ourselves into the car and headed to the movie theater on post to watch Mars Needs Moms. I didn’t think anything of the fact that the kiddos had been up since five am and had also gone to bed late the night before. Needless to say by the time we drove home poor Marilyn was nodding off and I could tell Brooks was hoping I wouldn’t mention a bath or tooth brushing.

Silly boy!

some muffins, a fake easter bunny, and a jumping toy

My heart just broke a little today.

The last few weeks it’s been clear that Little Brooks is well, not so little anymore. He’s not just grown taller but he’s acting in a more mature, measured manner. I’ve given him kuddos for that and have been excited to see how he’s changing as he’s growing.

And then today we went to help stuff easter eggs for a friend’s Battalion Easter Egg Hunt.

They arranged for the Easter Bunny to make an appearance to surprise everyone. I fully expected Brooks to jump up excited about the whole thing. Yes, I know he’s almost eight, but really, this kid has always been pretty young at heart. Although for the last several holiday’s he’s been keen on the whole that’s-not-the-real-(insert random holiday character here) he’s been excited to get up close and personal with whoever it may be.

Not so today. He was actually upset that someone would pretend to be the Easter Bunny and he wanted me to know that he knew this guy wasn’t the real thing and he knew, somehow he said, that this guy wasn’t working for the real deal Easter Bunny in any way, shape, or form.

Thankfully he allowed himself to be photographed with the Easter Bunny, though I suspect he did so more for me then anything else. I suppose this moment was coming and I should have known, but man, where does the time go? It doesn’t seem like that long ago that he was toddling everywhere, burying his face in my neck when I’d pick him up.

And so he grows up a little, moment by moment, and I’d be silly to want to hold him back. I’m not sure I’m ready for him to tell me Santa’s not real, though I have a feeling it’s coming. Oh, boy.

After we came home from the egg stuffing and my first physical therapy (not my favorite thing to do by any means) The Boy and I sat down to make a project. I wanted to combine the project with an activity because I was in a bit of pain from the PT and wanted to take some pain meds and pass out, though not before spending some time with Little B.

I browsed the internet and came upon this activity: http://bkids.typepad.com/bookhoucraftprojects/2009/09/project-33-jumping-cups.html

The Jumping Cups are ingenious and I knew right away that it would intrigue Brooksy and that he’d be excited about the whole thing. I was just glad I found something that was easy to assemble and create.

Here is our process:

Little B began by creating a monster for his jumping cup. He nixed the idea of a jumping animal, though he temporarily fancied the idea of a creating a geyser.

After he cut out his monster he began working on his cup. He poked four holes in the lip of the cup using a small screwdriver.

Then he attached two rubber bands to the holes and I tied off the ends for him.

Lastly, we attached his monster. Super duper easy. And he was one happy boy.

He’d been playing off and on all day with his paper wand we made yesterday and now he had a jumping cup, which he really fancied. Now, as the mother of a boy, who can be quite rowdy at times, I should have know that a jumping cup would turn into a weapon. He learned that if held both cups against his chest, the top cup would shoot out straight, like a missile. Nice!

And so we had a great day, insightful as it was. And tomorrow is going to be a special day since my cousin’s daughter is coming to visit. The Boy is beyond excited to have a visitor and I’m looking forward to catching up with family. Life remains good.