Easter Bonnet Best

After church on Easter Sunday, we took some obligatory Easter pictures! This bonnet was one my mom made completely by hand way back once upon a time. It was a nice surprise for her to have found it, bleached it, and pressed it just in time for Easter to match the brand new gorgeous dress she made just for Carolina!

The amazing thing is, Carolina wasn't too sure about the bonnet, but when I put it on, we all made a big deal about it (including Lawton) that she left it on throughout class, church, in the car and for pictures at Gran-D's house. We were shocked!

Not too bad - at least all four are looking in the right direction! :)

Can you see all the detail that my mom did by hand?!? Amazing!

I think Papa J and GranD are pretty proud!

Sis has this egg hunting stuff down pat by now!

Do you think Lawton loves his cousins? :)

She must have discovered something very intriguing!

Easter morning

The Easter Bunny came! (a few weeks ago - oops!)
Sis was proud of her "little sis" pajamas!

Excited about her "lella" underwear (short for Cinderella . . . but they were really Princess and the Frog!) and a real little "lella" doll.

Comparing notes . . . :)

Scavenger Hunt and such

The day before Easter we headed up to my parent's house to celebrate Easter, as well as my dad's birthday and Chad's birthday. Poor guys - they just get the shaft and have been lumped together the past several years . . .

We had a little egg hunt for the kiddos on a beautiful afternoon.
Dandy actually made Lawton a scavenger hunt that took him ALL OVER their large yard. We made it the first one or two clues and then we just let Lawton and Dandy finish the scavenger hunt themselves. ha!

Sis trying out that vintage trike!

The sun was a little bright for the two of them. ha!

This picture below cracks me up. . . we finally let Carolina and Luke have "their" hunt after trying to chase Lawton around on his. She knew exactly what to do and was going to town. Luke, however, just wanted to carry around his three or four eggs and was content. You can see Kathryn in the background saying, "Luke! Go get the eggs like Carolina! (She's going to beat you and you won't have any chocolate candy for me to eat!) Put your eggs in the basket like Carolina!"

Because you see, Luke, sweet Luke is a HOARDER! He likes to carry around his animals, or cars, or whatever all at one time and not let go. These eggs were no exception . . . we all got a good laugh out of his antics!

All Lawton's (and Dandy's) hard work paid off . . . a chocolate bunny at the end!

And my Easter present? Mom made Carolina and Luke matching outfits and an extra pink dress for Carolina for Easter. They are gorgeous!!

We tried them out, but by this point in the night our subjects weren't too willing to be photographed. . .

Thanks Mom!!

We almost fed them to the bunnies

Growing up, my parents always used to tease me and my sister that they were going to "feed us to the crocodiles". After looking back at these pictures, it looks like we almost lost one of our children to the ferocious bunnies at our local toy store right before Easter . . .
uh-oh. Here goes Chad in for the drop. . .

She's almost gone . . .

That was close. . . she made it out safely to greet the bunnies outside as well.

Surprisingly, Lawton held this one and was so relaxed and content. I never know what this boy is going to do! :)

Our Simple Little Easter party

We hosted Lawton's preschool class Easter Egg Hunt this year. We're "new" to this school, so since his Easter party, I've seen other's parties on fb and blogs . . . wow. We had a simple little party and the kids seemed to have a blast anyways! :) Like below - his sweet little class - but notice how I didn't even bother to plant flowers. Shame on me. Still haven't planted them . . . but I will! :)

And this is a memory I want to document for myself. Trying to busily get everything ready that morning, I laid out this outfit for him to put on. But, oh, my strongwilled, opinionated son wanted to wear his White Sox baseball uniform (which he had been wearing to school very often) for the Egg Hunt. Well, let me just say - it wasn't pretty. Momma won as you can see, but with the hat added sometime during the party. . . I'm pretty lenient about what he wears and he does have a lot of choice, but not on this day. :)

One of his best buddies, Bennett

Bennett, Lawton and Caden actually all posing and looking!

His sweet teacher, Miss Anna!

The basket was as big as she was . . .

Our friends Barclay and Leslie had our entire Sunday School class over for an egg hunt - on the most PERFECT day ever!! There were quite a lot of little kiddies around! :)

This is one of the best shots I got of Lawton - because, you all know, egg hunting is SERIOUS business not to be taken lightly. And not like he didn't have fifteen other egg hunts as well in the coming week.
This hunt was Sister's first official hunt of the season, so she was mesmerized by some colorful packages (which looked an awful lot like candy) fall out of some of her eggs. There was NO distracting her to look at the camera! :)

I love this - it looks as though she might topple over with all those eggs!

Lawton and Jackson taking time out for a little picnic dinner

Oh my. Sis discovered an egg with loose jellybeans and was pleased as punch! Notice the yellow #5 drool that made its way to her dress . . . (and yes, this was one of my dresses when I was little - isn't it wonderfully vintage-y and cool!?!)

uh-oh. Harris - "Lina - hey my bff! I see you have an open egg with jellybeans . . . I've already found and eaten about sixteen eggs filled with candy so far today but my mommy and daddy are busy cleaning up from the awesome party they held for everyone so they won't notice if you share number seventeen with me . . . pretty please??"

"Lina"(as called by all her peers) - "Hmmm. . . I did have fun over here today . . ."

"Lina" - "okay, Haw-wis. I'll give you just one. . . and I'll keep the other twelve jellybeans in here to myself. Hey MOM! Did you just see that I shared? Clap your hands for me, 'kay?"

So you can laugh at my children's expense

First of all, didn't mean to "scare" anyone by my last post. Just to elaborate a teeny bit about why I went private for a little bit (if anyone even really noticed) . . . Chad is a principal at a school - somewhere. :) There have been some interactions lately that particularly made us a bit uncomfortable, so we "went under". However, I feel as though I'm very vague (besides mentioning first names), and decided it would be okay to be "public" again. So . . . no blog harassers or inappropriate comments and no scary stuff with our family - okay? :)

I am going to play a bit of catch up - really for my own benefit so that if one day I do decide to print my blog, a big chunk of some momentous occassions won't be missing. So, peruse on down if you wish, or you can just stop at this one hilarious picture from St. Patrick's Day.

Lawton dressed himself and came out proud as punch of his GREEN outfit. Ummm. . . yeah. I let him keep the t-shirt and self made tag but lose the pants before we went out in public. I do give him props though for layering a turtleneck underneath. He does know the weather forecast better than most adults, ya know. :)

Enjoy your day!

Sunny Days . . .

On March 13, (I'm way behind . . .) my sweet nephew turned two! I couldn't not show you how cute his birthday was - and I'm not even showing you the half of it! Kathryn did an awesome job decorating for Luke's birthday. I feel a little sorry for Carolina because hers won't even compare - ha!
Luke gets a little help from Jonah, his best friend!

A little overwhelmed at everyone singing to him . . .

Are these not ADORABLE? Carolina, Luke and Jonah were SO excited over them!

Not sure when the last time just the two of us had a picture made together!

And this picture just makes me laugh - the grandparentparazzi singing "Happy Birthday!" ha!

This is the best shot we could get of the cousins!

This singing card was SO funny!

Happy Birthday, Luke!