Easter Weekend

Cedric at the preschool Easter Party.

Coloring Easter eggs.

Family Trip to the Hogle Zoo.

The kids had a five day weekend for Spring Break over the Easter weekend.  Tom had Friday off because of Good Friday.  So we took advantage of the day and made the most of it.  We decided to surprise the kids, but it felt like we were pulling teeth to get them to want to go anywhere.  I had even convinced them to do double jobs on Thursday, so they wouldn’t have any jobs on Friday.  However, Friday morning we were debating if surprising them was such a good idea.  They didn’t seem very cooperative.  Once we got out of the house though, they were better.  First, we went to Wendy’s for lunch (because they had buy one get one free coupons for the zoo).  Then we went to the zoo.  It was a little overcast, but mid-high 60’s, so it was a perfect day for the zoo!

 

   

The zoo is one of the few places you can take four children ages 2, 5, 7 & 10 and they’re all happy (for the most part).

Cedric did not like the smell in the monkey house.

 

Playing on the playground.

Cedric hasn’t hatched yet.

 

 

Lily loved this wild cat and it seemed to love her too.

Sophie didn’t ride in the stroller once the whole day (the boys fought over it instead).  She walked or ran the whole time and loved it!

 

I have to laugh at this photo.  This is the typical “Sophie with her siblings” photo.

 

So you can imagine how thrilled I was when I snapped this shot.  It’s one of my absolute favorite pictures of these to stubborn kids.

 

We left the zoo late that afternoon, and to no surprise, half the kids were asleep within minutes.

 

After a late nap and some pizza, we headed out again.  This time to the Grizzlies Hockey Game. 

The kids thought it was loud, but we had awesome seats!

I decided that even though we got free tickets with our Pass of All Passes, it was not worth the parking fee, or the wrestling with the kids to be there.

I told them all they had $2 each to spend on concessions, but since the cheapest treats were $6 they had to pool their money together.  The three youngest agreed on a big bag of cotton candy.

 

Lily decided to use her $2 to buy two $1 pucks to chuck out on the ice when they do their $100 give-away game.  Whomever gets their puck closest to the middle, wins.  Well poor Lily was so excited that she just chucked her pucks and was too far back for them to even make it to the ice.  She was pretty sad after that.  So with a sad girl, sugar-high kids and no more treats, I decided I was done.  Tom finished the game with his brother, Kurtis and I took the exhausted kids home and put them to bed.  It was a fun, long day.

That night, the Easter Bunny came! (With 9am church and 8:15am choir practice on Sunday we gave the Easter Bunny permission to come a day early).  The kids actually did really well that morning.  They all slept in a bit, after the tiring day before, and when the boys woke up, they just went downstairs without touching any eggs or looking for any baskets (we told them not to the night before, but Cedric “accidentally” saw his basket, so he had wait to do the basket hunt last) and Sophie slept in the longest, then played iPad in her bed until we were ready to get up.  So after Tom and I were done sleeping, the kids got to look for their baskets.

 

Each of them got something special in their basket.  Lily, crazy socks and a swim suit, Jeff, Skip-Bo and a new shirt (his favorite color is pink right now), Cedric, another Skylander character and Sophie, the movie “Frozen”.

Once they all found their baskets, they got to hunt for eggs.

    

The next day was Easter Sunday.  I didn’t get any cute new clothes for my kids, nor did I take any pictures of them in their Sunday best. Oh well.

That afternoon we went to Tom’s parents house.  They always do a huge candy hunt in their back yard and the weather was perfect!

     

After the Easter hunt we had a yummy dinner.

 

The next day Lily and Jeff didn’t have school, but Cedric and I still had preschool.  The older two were so excited they could be there to help.  That afternoon they had a picnic lunch in the backyard.

It was a fun, long weekend!  and a small taste as to how crazy our summer’s going to be.