Catching Up: Easter Fun, Crawling, Lots of Pictures

On a side note...I was excited that I woke up before the kids this morning. I had great plans of getting the morning routine done, then making some bread, washing the dishes, etc...Oh, what I could do with an hour or two! I got out of bed, got dressed, read my scriptures without any crying or anyone trying to rip the pages. Then I started exercising. I started with crunches. I was doing well for a minute, then the crunches started going slower and slower, then I could hardly keep my eyes open. As, I fought to stay awake, I thought, "this is ridiculous," and I laid down on the couch for a minute. An hour and 15 minutes later, Jaden woke me up.

It is now 10:30 pm and I am up with Zoee, waiting for her to tire out. I got the bread made, I colored lots of pictures, played outside, drove cars around the living room, got half of my exercising done, and half of the dishes washed...
In the midst of all of this I have learned something: If you can fall asleep doing crunches, that nap on the couch is far more important than the crunches!

Before Easter, our grocery store here had a little event for the kids. They had booths for cookie decorating, making Easter cards, getting an Easter picture taken, and lots of yummy free samples around the store.
We had fun until the picture part. Jaden, who is normally very eager to hop in front of the camera with a "cheese," decided he was not in the mood. He was frowning, Zoee was trying to wiggle off the chair, and I was trying to make them both cooperate. Well, this is how our picture turned out:

Take Two:

Well, I'm just glad they were free...:)

On "Easter Eve" we dyed eggs, had a ham dinner, and watched an animated story of the resurrection of Christ.


For Easter we went to church, had Easter baskets, and an egg hunt in the back yard. Jaden was so excited about the egg hunt. You can see the looks on his face each time he found an egg. He was excited for all 12 of them!:) I have to include all of the many pics I took, because his reactions were all so funny to me. (Please excuse our back yard weed jungle - we're working on that!) Anyway, he tells me every day now that he wants to go find some more eggs in the yard.


Zoee got some new Easter dresses, but wasn't especially thrilled about the occasion. She's too busy crawling around and trying to pull herself up on everything she can get a hold of! Here is a video of her real crawling. I was kindof disappointed that she graduated from the frog hopping so quickly, as it was quite entertaining.:)

Here is a picture of her practicing standing while holding onto me (wearing her new Easter present from Grandma Than.)

As I am writing, she is trying climb up the printer by my feet. I'm going to go crazy if she starts walking soon! :)

Zo thinks her brother is the coolest thing ever. She always smiles and squeals when he arrives on the scene. They are starting to become buddies now, playing together for a few minutes before Jaden runs over her with a car, bonks her with his stick horse, tries to roll her, or other miscellaneous things which cause her to scream for my assistance.


Soccer Babe

And last but not least (yes, you have finally reached the end of the monstrous post): Here's what the Easter Bunny left in my basket! What a cute present I got!
(Here Jaden is saying: "She's heavy! Get her off me!)

(I promised to get her off if he would hurry and smile.)