Easter Weekend Doings

  

We had a pretty wonderful Easter here with a cousin and grandma along for the festivities.  I did a lot of cooking and baking and Chris and the kids did a lot of playing outside and working in the yard and grandma did a lot of holding of the baby--which worked out nicely for everyone involved.

On Holy Saturday the children decided to set up a storefront selling used golf balls that they've been collecting and when there weren't enough products for them all to hock they opened up a second storefront selling candy inside of plastic eggs.  I think they each made two dollars and they stayed busy all day.  A win all around.

That night I asked Margaret if she knew what the next day was and she said, "chocolate day?"  Not exactly, but that did pretty much sum up Easter morning at the Reintjes house.  After we got home from mass, endured an endless photo shoot in which I brought out the tripod and still got no good family pictures because of a certain someone who insisted on making faces, and hunted the baskets, there was a chocolate binge the likes of which we haven't seen round these parts since, well, Christmas.

Afterwards, we had our traditional Easter egg hunt and smash, but this year disaster struck when David dropped the glitter egg and it......broke on the ground.  The kids were very upset at the thought of having no winner--everyone except Margaret that is.  After she realized she could hunt eggs and then sit down to eat the fruity pebbles out of them instead of throwing them at her siblings she was fairly content.  Once it looked like all the eggs had been found and the fun was over, I noticed one lone egg up in a tree and announced that whomsoever found the very last un-findable egg would be the winner and would receive the golden bunny as their prize after all and the hunt was saved.  Note to self:  next year make a back up glitter egg.

We followed up the hunt with a gigantic Easter dinner that none of the children ate because they were full of a really unappetizing mix of candy and veggie sticks and then we went to swim at the indoor pool.  We're all exhausted and I feel like I've been in the kitchen for three days straight--most likely due to the fact that I was.  But He is Risen!  And Chris took next week off so we're all officially on spring break!  What more could a girl ask for, besides maybe being able to sleep all the way through the night?

Well, there's always next year :)

Happy Easter!

An Easter Recap

This year, we spent Holy Saturday in our usual manner--that is, decorating an absurd amount of Easter eggs. Seventeen dozen to be exact.  I like to go the old tried and true food coloring route, with some vegetable oil thrown to spice things up.  The kids love it and with so many eggs to dye nobody's very particular about their work.  It's just a color mixing, double dipping, experimenting free for all.  Clearly we are very fancy egg decorators.  

I spent the rest of the afternoon filling said eggs with fruity pebbles and sealing them up for our annual Easter egg hunt and otherwise preparing the house and food and getting all the other things done that need to happen when you invite entirely too many people over for a party.

On Easter Sunday, we went to mass and then came home for a quick photo shoot in which we did not get an actual family photo and I also managed to overexpose pretty much all of the cutest pictures of the children.  I'm nothing if not professional.

Once our mildly successful photography session was over we let the kids inside to hunt for their Easter baskets.  This year (once again) everyone found their baskets except Henry.  His preferred method of wandering about aimlessly and complaining that he can't find anything was surprisingly not the most successful way to locate an Easter basket.  Even with my fairly obvious hint to "look behind the curtains" he still couldn't muster up the gumption to, I don't know, lift up the nearest curtain and look behind it.  In the end, John, following my oh so subtle clues, found the basket and saved the day.

The kids each got a book, a bit of candy, a magnifying glass/watering can (or tea cup as John calls it?)/doll depending on who you were and some flower seeds.  The flower seeds area perennial favorite and I think there would have been tears if they hadn't been included.  There's already been much discussion about whose flowers are going where and I think we've worked out a game plan for where to put the sunflowers this time so that they actually grow.  (Don't tell the neighbors but it involves the front yard....our neighborhood might be a little too classy for sunflower patches, but what do you when the front yard has the best light?)

After the kids ate nearly every single piece of candy in their baskets, we commenced with the party preparations--and naptimes.  Naptimes were very important to the success of the party.  The DeAngelo cousins stopped by for a visit and Jack even managed to win the egg hunt to which we can only say, thank you for coming and we're sorry about the glitter--it's probably not coming off for a while.

Though I had my camera with me for the rest of the party I did not manage to document any of it--which is probably not a bad thing since I was obviously not on my A-game.  The egg hunt was a success, although it went really fast.  Apparently seventeen dozen eggs is not nearly enough--this year the kids were bigger and the competition intense.  I think next year we'll need to go even bigger.

It was such a lovely Easter.  We loved having a full house and a chance to visit with family, friends and neighbors.  I'm so glad we decided to host the party again this year, even if our house isn't exactly ideal for entertaining large numbers of people all at once.  I think everyone really enjoyed themselves.  I know our kids did :)

How were all of your Easter celebrations?  Wonderful I hope!

Easter 2015

Lent came to a close this year with a definite fizzle.  After two weeks and then some with a stomach bug stealthily sneaking through the house hitting each one of us in turn, pretty much all of our sacrifices had been put on hold and copious amounts of Netflix had been watched--and very little schoolwork attempted. We definitely limped over the finish line towards Easter, chocolate croissants in hand.

But, while the last three weeks of Lent were...well, a bit of a disaster, Easter--Easter was glorious.

Holy week services attended: zero
Easter eggs dyed on Holy Saturday:  eight dozen

Sometimes you win at Lent and sometimes you spend Holy Week in a chocolate/television induced stupor.  Well, there's always next year right?

Thanks to Grandma Kazleman we did have super cute Easter outfits for the kids though--complete with new church shoes--so we weren't complete Easter failures as well..

And yes I did force the boys to wear mother-son coordinating outfits with their bow ties matching my dress.  You have to seize those moments while you can before they start to think being mother-son matchers isn't cool anymore.  Not that they ever would.

The boys got to hunt for their baskets after we got home from the 7 am mass and following forced photo shoot.  Poor Henry couldn't find his basket behind the curtains and almost lost it before he got a timely hint and Easter was saved.

Aunt Courtney provided rain boots for the big boys and a boat and hair bows for John and Margaret respectively which were all big hits.  They also got copious amounts of candy and a new book a piece and, as per usual, some new seeds to plant in the garden.

We didn't throw our annual Easter party this year--which was probably a good thing since I would not have been prepared and our yard is still....also a disaster.  We did manage to gather ourselves together after mass though and head out for a bit of a family party in Fredericksburg complete with our annual egg hunt/smash which obviously we still had to do :)

Chris cemented his title of "coolest uncle" and he and our oldest nephew Noah took the egg smashing to a whole new level.  Luckily none of my children won the game and this year my choice of giant chocolate prize bunnies didn't come back to my home to haunt me with it's over-sized chocolate deliciousness.

Some kids liked having eggs cracked on their heads more than others.....

.....I'm sure he'll grow into the fun.....

And of course, Aunt Kate offered was commandeered into taking a family picture or twenty for us.

Everyone had so much fun it almost made the two hours it took us to drive the 45 minutes home worth it :)

And now, with all of the Lenten Spring cleaning that never came to pass, I'm afraid my house can be accurately summed up in Mrs. Tittlemouse's words from one of our new Easter basket books:

"...the untidiness was something dreadful--'Never did I see such a mess--smears of honey; and moss, and thistledown--and marks of big and little dirty feet--all over my nice clean house!' "

Well, except for the part about the "nice clean house." After Easter would probably be a good time to squeeze in that Spring cleaning, maybe not after the whole Easter season but definitely at least after the Octave.....


Happy Easter to everyone, whether you managed to clean out your basements or not!  And thanks again to Aunt Kate for hosting us!