Thursday, April 24, 2014

Spring Festival/Easter 2014

 I didn't do much to prepare for Easter this year. Heck, we didn't tell Benjamin what the Easter bunny is until last night. Yet it still turned out to be a great holiday.

On Saturday, after what now is our routine of swimming lesson followed by Starbucks followed by the library...

Allow me to digress. Hilarious conversation with Benjamin right after swimming.
Ben: I want to go to the Library
DH: The library is closed. We will go to Starbucks first, then the Library will be open. 
Ben: No! Starbucks is closed. The library is open. I want to go to the library.
Me: Benjamin, that's not how language works.
Ben: Yes that IS how language works. 
 
and also after a nap for Benjamin, we headed out to my parents house for an Easter Egg Dyeing party. The adults got set up in the living room doing Ukrainian Easter Eggs (also known as Pysanka) while we set up the traditional PAAS dyes for Benjamin in the kitchen. (Meanwhile, the majority of the family dogs raced around outside and found some deer parts to chew on). The guest list included my parents, older sister, her husband, her FIL, MIL, and Grandma IL, my brother and his wife, my little sister, and us three. I have discussed Ukrainian eggs before. Its an old art form that involves covering an egg in wax to preserve one color dye before dipping it in the next color. It is a lot of fun. We seem to manage to do it about every other year.

Ben and egg dye... that was hilarious. We had both the regular dye kit, as well as these painting devices from PAAS. Benjamin did not understand he should be careful with the eggs. The first couple he pretty much dropped from 6 inches into the cups. I am sure it didn't help that this cracked us all up. Also, he kept tasting the dye. The boy must like vinegar. Once he had an egg in all six cups, he said "are we done?" and ran off. Then, when he figured out we could CHOOSE when to take the eggs out, he proceeded to leave them in for a LOOOOONG time. There were four eggs that he left in the dye so long that they were actually having dye peel off of them when we tried to dry them off. LOL! The painting devices... I think they call them Color Snaps, they are pretty cool. Its basically like a quip-tip that is pre-filled with dye, and when you snap them open the dye flows into one end of the quip-tip turning it into a paintbrush. This means you can add the spots and strips to the eggs easily (you know, like how Easter eggs are always portrayed in books). The one egg Benjamin used these on is gorgeous. Unfortunately he also decided to put it in his mouth, dyeing himself bright green/blue, so we decided not to do anymore. I plan to get more of these for sure for next year.

Saturday night when I was putting Benjamin's pajamas on, I explained that tomorrow was Easter, that the Easter bunny would come and hide eggs and leave him treats. His immediate reaction was fear ("I don't want the bunny to come"), but after some discussion of the fact the bunny was nice, and there would be candy involved, he decided it was OK.

This morning Benjamin got up around 7. At first he wanted to stay up stairs and read books (pretty typical), but then we reminded him about Easter and he was so gung-ho he didn't even want to bring his stuffed friends down (not typical). He walked down the steps and immediately spotted the Easter Eggs. He chose one, picked it up and opened it, found the M&M inside, looked at me as he acted like he was going to put it in his mouth. I nodded, he put it in, bit into it, and a BIG grin spread across his face. Really big. Funny how fast he found more eggs after that! He shared his M&Ms with us and was very excited and smiley. We helped him find some of the harder eggs. When they were all found we opened a couple of gifts from his Grandparents (my ILs). They got him a copy of "What does the Fox Say" picture book, as well as The Fox and the Hound Disney movie, both to go along with his requested stuffed fox, which he is absolutely in love with. (There were other gifts for the family as well, thank you N&N!!). What great gift choices. We read the book pretty much immediately, listened to the song and danced around, and then a bit later watched a good chunk of the movie, which he really paid attention to.


After a morning nap for Benjamin (not the usual routine but we wanted to squeeze it in), we headed up to Two Harbors to go for Easter Brunch. The resort had lots of stuffed animals (as in formerly living, now stuffed), and Ben loved looking at them. Unfortunately he wasn't very interested in eating, which is sort of a theme now. After that we took him back to my parents house, stuck some rain boots over his dress clothes, and let him play in the mud. The weather was SO gorgeous. It was nice to just sit outside in the sun and soak up the rays. It was a really great Easter.
------

For those of you who have stuck with it this long. I am sure you already know this, I have announced it pretty much everywhere EXCEPT here. It seems fitting, on this day that celebrates Spring Renewal, new life and fertility, that I take the final steps in making public that I am expecting a baby! Due date is September 12th, meaning I am 18w2d today. This has been part of the cause of my blog silence. Hard to talk about my life when there is something so big I didn't want to post about yet.

No comments: