Blessed Beyond Measure: Easter Weekend Part 1: It is Finished

For Easter weekend we headed up North to spend the holiday with my family again. This year, rather than working a half day on Good Friday as he's done in the past, Eric took off the entire day. This allowed us to finish packing up and head North after breakfast...which really meant we didn't get on the road until about 10:30. The boys were both very good on the way up, but we did still have to make a few stops for potty breaks and lunch, which was at Culver's in Sheboygan.

Cheeeeeeese!!!

Love those baby blues!

At around 3pm, we arrived at my parents house. Earlier in the week they had gotten about 6 inches of snow, so the boys were happy to get some warmer clothes on and go outside to play for a while.

A couple of hours after we arrived, my brother Aaron and his family pulled up and the chaos of 6 adults and 6 little boys began. Everyone spent the rest of the evening going for gator rides with papa, enjoying the awesome lasagna dinner that Mom made and playing with all the toys in the basement.

Avery playing PeekABoo with Grandma and his garlic bread.

3 little trouble makers.

On Saturday morning Eric started the day off by taking Avery for a gator ride since the four older boys had gotten to go the day before but he had to stay behind. Then, after some breakfast,... the five oldest boys got to color Easter eggs...in their skivvies (because 5 little boys working with dye had promise to ruin a lot of clothes!).

In addition to the traditional method of dunking the eggs in colored water, we also tried the method of using a whipped product with food coloring to dye the eggs. I had seen this on Pinterest with shaving cream and dye but I didn't like the idea of putting food into shaving cream. Then my mom suggest cool whip instead and it worked great!

Eric helping Avery with his eggs.

"Oooooooooo!!"

Look Mom!!

Avery tried the cool whip egg coloring too...

...and I was really happy it was edible!

Avery foregoes egg coloring to eat colored Cool Whip.

After coloring eggs, we enjoyed a bit more relaxing time at the house and then headed into Carney for the annual Lion's Club Egg Hunt.

Checking out the snow on the ground.

Hudson & Papa talking to the Easter Bunny

Five boys and a bunny.

Avery was really interested in the Easter Bunny but didn't want to get too close. Instead, he would stand there and look at him and wave shyly.

The hunt is on! We didn't find too many eggs because there were lots of bigger kids, but they still had a lot of fun.

Although he had a few more, one egg (aka "ba") is really all this kid needed to be happy.

The kids also each got a prize to take home. Avery and Asher both got stuffed animals. Avery was happy that his had a ball.

When the egg hunt was over, we got the boys back to Mom and Dad's, fed them lunch and laid down for naps. When everyone had woken up, it was cool but sunny so we spent most of the remainder of the afternoon outside. Grandma, Papa and Aaron walked down to the park with the four oldest boys and baby Gabe, while Eric, Erika, Avery and I stayed behind. Eric and I really weren't up for the park but knew Avery still wanted to play outside, so we took him for a long gator ride around town and then played with him in the yard.

Eric, Avery and I on our afternoon Gator ride.

(3) Videos: Gator Rides with Avery

...he even got to drive for a bit!

Avery enjoying having Mom & Dad's toys all to himself.

Video: Four Wheelin'

Video: Ballin'

While Avery played with toys and balls on the driveway, Eric and I enjoyed simply relaxing and watching him play. He had fun shooting hoops with us and running around. At one point though I saw him staring at the ground for a long time and whispered to Eric that I thought Avery had just discovered his shadow for the first time. Sure enough, he stared for some time and then moved a little bit, noticing that the shadow moved too. Then he slowly backed up as you would from a bear in the woods, trying to get away from his shadow. When he realized that the shadow was following him, he started to whine and cry. It was one of the cutest things we'd ever witnessed our kids do! For probably about 20 minutes we played with our shadows and tried to convince Avery that it was fun and safe, but he wasn't so sure.

Avery staring at his shadow.

Waving at Mr. Shadow.

Asking Mom and Dad who this dude is!

Video

Avery stomps on that naughty shadow!

Avery is done with this guy and wants Daddy to hold him.

Video: Weeeeeeee!!!

When everyone was done playing outside, we enjoyed a yummy grilled dinner, more play time, some Easter Story Cookie making, Root Bear Floats and family movie time to end a great full Klingenmaier family day!

Avery snuggling with Papa

Asher & Caleb playing together. These two had a lot of fun playing together this weekend. At one point, they came upstairs and asked Grandma for some paper. Caleb says, "Can we have some paper?...cause we have a plan!" "Uh Oh" we thought, what does that mean? Caleb continued, "I know what he's thinking and he knows what I'm thinking!". Asher responds innocently and confused by his older cousin: "What do we know?"