Easter Egg Hunt 2011

A beautiful, sunny, Kansas windy day for our annual Easter Egg hunt. A crowd begins to form in the park.

Parents with cameras are everywhere.

I've one grandchild here that doesn't feel too big to hunt Easter Eggs. Or, she REALLY likes chocolate.

The Easter Bunny joins us at the hunt.

With all the children divided up into age groups they're walked over to the soccer field that is strewn with foil wrapped chocolate eggs.

Once they're all lined up at their designated area they're given permission to go hunt for all they can find.

Look at her go! On a bee line for the egg straight ahead.

Lot's of little eggs to be had, enough for all.

Mom and sis join her to walk back to the park.

A good hunting trip, though some appear to be a bit mushy. Maybe they all should spend some time in the freezer before attempting to unwrap them.

Another Happy Easter Egg Hunt for all!

What a Busy, Cold, Saturday

Saturday morning stated with the younger grandson's (in town) having a soccer game. I had started to put on my long heavy coat and changed my mind because I was going to be sitting in the dil's car to watch. Our soccer field has no bleachers. I put on my sweater coat instead, it WAS 5o degrees. You can see in the picture below how dark the western sky was. The kids were feeling pretty comfortable at this point.
The grandson is in blue and pretty much in the center of both of these pictures.

Here's a picture of his sister, PK, watching the game. Note the blue sky with white clouds behind her to the south.

The grandson had a good game. It ended in a tie, 1 to 1.

You can see all the pictures that were taken Here

Next on the field was the Princess and her team. She's the one in the pink stockings.

Just the Princess and the ball...

...you GO, Girl! She has her own new pink soccer ball that she's been practicing with.

During her game it started getting really cold. Below you see her trying to warm up while sitting on the bench.

To see all the pictures from her game click HERE

After the Princess' game the three came to my house and at 2pm the grandson had a birthday party to go to downtown. They were going to have the party in the park, but with it turning so cold and windy they changed it to inside the fire station.

At 3pm we took PK to the park for the annual city Easter Egg Hunt. It was windy cold. The Easter bunny was there for photo ops.

Here she got her friend to get in on the picture.

Santa has his sleigh and reindeer, ever wonder how the Easter Bunny gets around?

Let the hunt begin! Here's the dil doing a double point...

It doesn't take long for mom to get in the way of picking up candy foil wrapped chocolate eggs.

They're everywhere...

...both girls have no problem with picking these up, now if only picking up toys were done so eagerly.

A nice little bucket of eggs.

For all the Easter Egg Hunt pictures click HERE

Since their mom had to work and their dad was already at work the girls stayed with me. It was the perfect opportunity to get into the string bracelet kit that my mom sent out for them. First I showed them how to cut the strings...

...then I showed them how to do the weaving.

At 4pm I went and picked up the grandson from his party and at 6pm the dil came to pick them up. The girls had already decided that they were going to stay the night so the grandson was the only one that went home with the dil. At bedtime the girls asked for ice cream so I got out all the syrups and sprinkles and they wanted them ALL!

I thought the colors were pretty so I had to get a picture before they added the colored marshmallows and whipped cream.

This was only a part of my busy day, there were meals and other things too, but this was all that I took pictures of. Hope all of you had busy, wonderful weekends with family.

Hoppy Easter!

Easter was spent at my brother's with family and friends all meeting there. I hope I don't bore you to tears with all my pictures, but my new camera just snaps away and has a huge memory card. I took over 240 pictures and was not even close to running out of room. I've chose just 19 of those to place here. Other's I have plans to post later on. The celebration began with a late lunch (my infamous veggie tray is front and center)...
Can you see me in the picture above? I let my sil's best friend try out the camera and I actually got in a shot. That's my ear with the bluetooth headphone in the center of the shot above. : )

After prayer we all sat down for good food and better company.
After dinner the Easter buckets (I don't buy baskets, they just end up getting trashed) make their appearance...
...and the children all go check out their goodies...

...this little princess was very pleased to find a princess figure in her bucket...
...and the younger ones often look like "deer in the headlights" with all the goodies, being fairly new to all this.
We get more toys than candy as a general rule... this little one knew right away that the pretty green ring wasn't a jewel at all but a big hunk of candy.
Contrary to some other families children, ours never believe themselves to be to "old" to get an Easter bucket. I do attempt to find them things that are age appropriate, though KMonster seemed a bit disappointed to find I hadn't gotten him any bubbles.
My sil informed me that bubbles are her princess granddaughter's favorite thing. So out they all went to the deck to produce beautiful bubbles. The weather had a little chill if you were in the shade, but it was wonderful for everyone to be outside on this early Easter day.

The bubbles were scented and they had some coloring in them also which is noticeable in some of the pictures.
These long skinny bubble wands produced an abundance of large lovely bubbles to the children's delight.
You would have to see the series of shots that goes with the picture below. I'm not so sure that he has done many bubbles by himself. In the first shot I took he wasn't smiling as he attempted to wave the wand. Then as bubbles formed out of it the corners of his mouth gradually turned up into the smile you see below.
Then there was swinging, this princesses second favorite thing to do. That's her "PaPa" (my brother) in the background and she's been known to drag him outside in the winter to swing. Of course, being "PaPa" he complied.
Finally there was Easter egg hunting. Notice in the picture below that I have turned over the video taping of events to the next generation. Thanks, KMonster, for stepping up!

The eggs were counted and re hid till they got tired of hiding and hunting.
Even the dog got in on the egg hunt...
Then there was more swinging...
...and even some twirling...
Another wonderful family gathering. I wish you and yours Joys and Blessings that come with the rebirth that springtime brings and those of your spiritual choice!

From Soccer Balls to Easter Eggs

It was cloudy, cold and drizzly when I woke up this morning. Didn't look good for what was on the schedule for the day. Grandson, Kmonster, had a soccer game scheduled for 1pm here. And by here, I mean if my vision were better I could probably watch the game from my front porch. His mother, my daughter, had to work today, so I am his designated cheering section for this game. I walked over to the field at 12:30 with my long, hooded, winter coat on because there is still quite a chill in the air. Just days before it had been in the 70's. At a little after 1pm the teams square up in the middle of the field.
Kmonster plays goalie again for 3/4 of the game. I guess he's the only one that wants to play this position.
Click on the picture below to get a larger view. I don't know if it will be large enough to see, he actually has "K Monster" printed on the back of his team shirt. And all of you thought it was just a cute nickname I'd given him.
Here's the Kmonster in action (below). They lost the game 2 to 1 but played a good game.

I was back home a little after 2pm which gave me time to fix some lunch and take care of a few other things before the Easter Egg Hunt at 4pm. DIL and her three showed up here around 3:30. These three, my son's children, are the only ones in town still young enough to participate. My daughter's two boys are too old, but I drafted the older one (Kmonster's older brother) to run the camcorder during the hunt. Before the hunt everyone gathers at the park and line up behind signs for designated age groups, 1-2 yrs, 3-4 yrs, etc...
The soccer field has been transformed, divided up by metal rebar and orange ribbon. The sections are covered with bright colored Easter eggs. For the two younger groups there are large plastic eggs along with the foil wrapped chocolate eggs that cover the other sections.
Below are the two younger groups lined up and ready to go grab some goodies.
My youngest granddaughter has learned to fly! Check the picture below if you don't believe me, both feet are off the ground.
The littler ones are always chased after by adults with cameras and shouting, "There's one, there's one, you missed one!"

The picture below is looking over at the older children gathering eggs. I almost got my house in the picture but only got as far as my neighbor on the left of the picture.
The littlest granddaughter has a bucket full with those big plastic eggs. She is an aggressive child so I wasn't surprised to see her bucket completely full.
The older granddaughter has quite a few of the little eggs. I'm sure that's plenty of chocolate to last her till Easter when she'll get more.
The grandson didn't do quite so well, but I'm sure his sisters will share with him.

And that was my Saturday. Tomorrow I have a birthday party to go to and I'll post more pictures.