Easter Egg Hunt in East Missoula

We took Hunter and JP to an egg hunt last year and they had so much fun! Perry and I enjoyed watching/helping them. Since we didn't have any plans to go out of town for the holiday weekend, we took the boys to the egg hunt in East Missoula. I'll embarrassingly admit that we took them to the fairgrounds first though. I read, and heard from various people, that they usually have good one. When we showed up, the place was dead. Because it happened TWO years ago...

 Luckily we found that out before this egg hunt started. As far as I know, Missoula had one at the University and this one in East Missoula. How many people does Hunter know? Maybe 15? 20? What are the chances that he finds someone HE knows before mom or dad do? Odds are pretty low, but it happened. For how friendly Hunter is, he sure was shy when I told him to go over and say "Hello." He instead just stood alarmingly close to his preschool friend until he turned around. 

 Again, due to the age groups they had designated, Hunter and JP were supposed to be in different groups, but we wanted to watch both, so since Hunter's friend was in the 3-4 year old group, we figured Hunter could too. 

 Charlotte kept it together nicely even though she didn't nap when I thought she was, and was hungry. Go mom for leaving her bottle AT HOME. 

 Here's JP before the race. He didn't want a picture with his green bucket but I snapped one anyways. Hunter just didn't want a picture at all. (I probably embarrass him now...)

 Hunter surprised me again once the race started. I told both of the boys when it's time to go, to run out there and start scooping up eggs. Hunter *literally* walked around at a snails pace, like he had all the time in the world. 

 JP on the other hand took off running and gather up eggs very quickly, and was not picky about the color this year. 

 This picture makes me laugh for so many reasons! JP was so proud of his loot. On his way back across the field, he walked SO slow because he had eggs falling out of his bucket.

 Hunter didn't have that problem, or even close to it. All the eggs in front of him were all the eggs he collected.

 JP on the other hand...

Hunter received mostly coupons from all of his 10 eggs, and JP picked up mostly eggs with candy in them. Completely the opposite last year. Needless to say, Hunter was very disappointed and JP was bouncing with excitement. But not a second after I took this picture, we combined buckets so it was fair. 

Dying Easter Eggs

Where do I begin? I haven't logged on here for TEN days and I'm feeling REALLY behind! Pardon my delay in relaying to you the adventures in our world....

As you probably saw, Charlotte was *exhausted* to say the least after a night of dying eggs. 

 After covering the counter in old towels, and setting up all the dye bowls, we were ready to start and the boys could hardly control their excitement. 

I've never done it this way before, but thought we should give it a try. Spray shaving cream in a shallow pan and drop food dye in random spots, then swirl with a tooth pick and roll the eggs in it. They are supposed to come out tie-dyed after sitting for 10-15 minutes. 

Ours didn't turn out quite as bold as I was hoping for, but I think if we would have used more dye it would have worked better. Regardless, this was even fun for dad!

 Not one of my best moments, but I thought little Kiki would like to have some fun too. 

 She did. 

And then I remember a few seconds too late what babies do....put stuff in their mouth......

 For the rest of the night, she hung out in the sink while we finished dying and decorating eggs. She LOVED it.

It didn't take her long to figure out how to drink the water either. Startled her every time. Goofy girl!

 Meanwhile, the boys stayed busy plopping eggs into cups. Surprisingly JP opted for colors OTHER THAN GREEN! 

 One of the few "mommy and her boys" pictures. :)

 Here's how a few of our eggs turned out. I love them all!

 Perry had the *brilliant* idea of putting a band-aide on this green guy. The darn thing was dropped at least 3 times and was on the verge of falling completely apart. Because JP is a green fanatic, you cannot throw a green egg out...

 I'm pretty sure this egg took a solid 5 minutes to decorate. He was SO proud of his multi-eyed monster!

 These are the shaving cream eggs after Perry rinsed them off. I'm loving Charli's red/pink eggs.

Hunter put stickers on a couple eggs and then decided to forgo the stickers and free hand paint faces on his eggs. The yellow/white looking egg in the top row was the only one that scored two eyes. And it looked creepy as ****.

Clean up was fun.... just kidding, I was busy watching Charlotte sleep sitting up. 

Bobblehead Charlotte

We had a fun night dying Easter eggs last night. Due to all the fun we were having, Charli missed her bedtime and was EXHAUSTED! After getting her into her pajamas, I left her in her room to fetch her a bottle. When I arrived back, she was hunched over snuggling with her blanket. (Whenever you hand her blanket to her, she immediately puts it up to her face and her fingers go in her mouth.)

One of my movements aroused her so I thought, 'I should be a good mom and tape this...' So I did.

If you have your volume up a little, you can hear her vigorously sucking the life out of her fingers. 

Welcome Baby Henry!

About two weeks ago, early in the morning, like it usually happens, Jimmy came into my room with his baby wrapped up in his favorite blanket. After I held the new baby and rocked it for a little bit, he took his baby back and left. I didn't think anything of it until I got out of the shower and discovered that he didn't have just one baby, he had five babies. All nameless, but because it was Elmo I held first, I will assume this is their birth order.

 Unfortunately for daddy Jim, four of his babies didn't make it past a week. Due to a  coloring mishap with a permanent marker, and a destruction of Legos with a bowling pin, all toys were grounded from the house for a while... This included all but one stuff animal each. It was at that point Jimmy chose to save one of his babies. 

Over the last four days, I have been on serious baby duty. As a grandma, I insisted that he give his baby a name so we know who he's talking about. After giving him some options, he agreed that Henry was a good name for his baby. It's unreal how real he treats him too. To demonstrate, I started "following" Henry around with the camera last night. 

 Here we have Aunt Charli kickin' it in the swing while Jimmy watches close so "your baby doesn't hurt my baby." Henry was even allow to stay up past bedtime (probably because Jimmy makes him take far too many naps) and watch tv with his daddy.

This morning Jimmy insisted that Henry get a bowl of cereal too. (Because sharing your own would be horrible!) Meanwhile Uncle Hunter is over there saying, "He's not even real! He's a stuff animal! He's not going to eat it!" Jimmy was quick to retort, "He IS real!!"

After breakfast, Henry took a nap in the swing. When he woke up, Hunter became the bus driver (on the couch) and took Jimmy to drop Henry off at childcare so the two of them could play. How responsible!

Why the sad look? Because Henry wasn't buckled in. 

No worries, I'll fix that....

When we arrived home from dropping Hunter off at preschool, we both put our babies down for a nap. "Your baby is NOT allowed to play with my baby."

 In the late afternoon, Aunt Charli was stuck on babysitting duty.

 I can't tell you how much he hate when Charli watches Henry. (On a side note, she's better than Grandpa Perry who dropped him the other night. I'm pretty sure Jimmy was on the verge of tears. Good thing Grandmas know what to do!)

 Not to judge though...Uncle Hunter had zoomed Henry around in the dump truck. I think Aunt Charli is a little gentler. 

 Like a good dad, he spent time playing with Henry too. Instead of passing him off to various babysitters.

 I think Henry really enjoyed his time in the sun today!

 He took a break during dinner and played with Whiskers the stuffed cat.

After a long, hard day, the two of them snuggled up for bed. 

I was going to post of picture of me with Henry, since I am handed him to hold an uncountable amount of times during the day, but I don't do well with selfies... Did I mention that Henry is wearing a diaper and went to the quilt store with us? Occasionally Henry is referred to as Uncle ByBy, which Perry and I think is suspiciously close sounding to Uncle Bobby. Turns out Popeye (the Sailor Man) has a nephew who calls him Uncle Popeye, which in the show sounds just like Uncle ByBy. (You're off the hook Robin) So confusing! And guess who is on baby duty while Jimmy is at preschool tomorrow? Grandma Sadie. #lifeofyoungparents

Since we're talking about a stuff animal, I will leave you with this stuffed animal holding a snoozing Charli. 

Aahhhh! How cute!!