Easter!

Egg Hunt At The Farm

Go East-er!

A few shots of the fun today.  And I have to note that one must appreciate how we get so nicely dressed up for the holiday around here.  :)

Dyeing To Get On With It

There's and egg in there somewhere!

King of the Dye Table

Peep Tree

Bunny did a nice job!

Egg Hunt

This year we totally mixed it up with a last minute jaunt to Maryland so we had to find a place for the egg hunt we usually have in the yard on Easter morning. Luckily, the little tourist book in our hotel room had a piece on the Cylburn Arboretum--and it was the perfect spot. I'd like to go back in a few weeks when trees and flowers are in fuller bloom...but the five minutes I spent under a wide open white lilac--the scent of which nearly laid me out with joy--was a great gift. So was watching these two run around a field and find their treasures.

Easter Weekend Blossoms

This picture doesn't capture the brightness of this azalea on a hidden path at Cylburn Arboretum

And this one was so big and the color contrast within each petal was amazing.

Look at this clump of fluffy double blossoms on this city cherry at the Inner Harbor

This gorgeous monster is on the backside of Fort McHenry. 

And this Mountain Laurel was at the arboretum.

And this one...well she just has the best hair-colorist!

Ha!  Gotcha!

Bunny Boy

The very last day of our trip to California was Easter. We spent it in the last row of an Airbus A320 headed east. So, we did a bit of Easter fun in the days before. Palmer served as our honorary hare.




How cute is that baby? Wow!

Egg Hunt!!

What a great day we had! The weather was beautiful, the location was perfect, the kids were all delighted, and the parents were all in a great mood. It was easy set up, easy cleanup. The only bad part was that it ended too soon. So Bob kept the party going in our driveway right up through dinner. All the leftover beer in a cooler in the open garage drew the neighbors in like flies to a sticky trap. And, we got our first official sunburn of 2010--Connor's face was as pink as could be.

Egg Hunt Prep

We've got a big family egg hunt today at our development's Nature Center. And we're so exicted for it. There are 10 families coming, a spring sandwich bar, brownies, donuts, fruit, and lots of candy. I got the idea to try to pull this together, mainly because I hate community egg hunts. They're always a madhouse. And there's always a limit on eggs---like 5 or 6. Which Connor can get to in about 20 seconds. Every family brought at least a dozen eggs. And I easily put in 60 or 70 more. There will be games, the hunt, and a visit from the Easter Bunny. We're really excited and spent some time yesterday getting ready, during which I got to thinking that we needed music. We've got a great portable Bose iPod system so that makes it easy enough. But what to play? I found a few lame playlists on the Web, but they did give me some ideas to run with...like "candy" and "sweet". Plus, somewhere along the way Bob got a hard drive with THOUSANDS of songs, which made it mostly free. He spent some time picking through that yesterday, too. We had to get a few traditional ones from iTunes, but all together its a really fun bunch of music. Here it is:

Chocolate Easter Bunny-Simply Weasels

Peter Cottontail-Gene Autry

Easter Parade-Bing Crosby

The Kids Don't Stand A Chance-Vampire Weekend

A Tisket, A Tasket-Ella Fitzgerald

Yummy, Yummy, Yummy-Ohio Express

I Want Candy-Bow Wow Wow

Dental Care-Owl City

Sweetest Thing-U2

I Still Havent' Found What I'm Looking For-U2

Peeps On The March-Easter Party Music

Show Me What I'm Looking For-Carolina Liar

Now That We've Found Love-Heavy D and the Boyz

Jump-Van Halen

The Bunny Hop-Easter Party Music

Good Times Roll-The Cars

Just Can't Get Enough-Depeche Mode

Go Your Own Way-Fleetwood Mac

Pour Some Sugar On Me-Def Leppard

Games People Play-Alan Parsons Project

Parents Just Don't Understand-Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff

Sweet Child O Mine-Guns 'N Roses

Candy-Cameo

My Favourite Game-The Cardigans

Crazy-Britney Spears

Lollipop-Aqua

One Sweet Day-Mariah Carey and Boys II Men

Sweet Dreams-La Bouche

Good Vibrations-Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch

Tubthumping-Chumba Wumba

MmmmBob-Hanson

Beating Around The Bush-AC/DC

Eat It-Weird Al Yanckovic

Here Comes Peter Cottontail!

We did some exciting egg coloring yesterday and we'll be having egg salad for breakfast today as a a result! We used a PAAS kit, a Dudley kit, and regular food coloring. And its Masters weekend so we went with the plastic grass tablecloth to control our messes!

This morning at the crack of dawn I was up icing that egg cake. Couldn't pull it together this year to make that spectacular chocolate bunny that we had last year. Plus, no one in this house needs a cake made with 3 pounds of butter. So, the egg cake is from a box and in a flavor that Connor will love (strawberry) but that Bob and I can resist.

I Gave Her My Heart. She Gave Me A Pen.

Every year at Easter I look forward to the Peep extravaganza that occurs. The Washington Post has a peep diorama contest and they'll publish it tomorrow. You can see a slide show of past winners here and here. If you look at this and it doesn't make you smile and wonder at the creativty and imagination of human-kind, you might have a problem.... I'm just saying.

Though this one is by far one of the least complicated, its my favorite. You simply have to love any "Say Anything" cultural reference. As Lloyd would say: "I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that." Excellent!