Easter 2016

We decided to go to Georgia for Easter this year. We hadn’t seen Beau & Kristy since the Fall, and it just worked out for us to be able to go up to do a big Easter with the family.
We left Friday afternoon and the kids were such troopers. All of our children have been such good travelers. They might not all sleep in the car, but we have always made it to our desitations with very few meltdowns.
Traffic was pretty bad and we didn’t make it to Aunt Kay’s until after 11:00. Tucker was fantastic, though, and went right back to sleep when we got there.
On Saturday morning, we started getting things ready for the big family egg hunt. Aunt Kay decided we needed to do the big lunch on Saturday instead of Sunday, because the forecast was calling for rain on Sunday afternoon.
We dyed eggs that morning and stuffed plastic ones with candy for the hunt.
My mom had heard about the rice-shaker eggs, so we tried that this year with Tucker. He loved it, and best of all, there was no mess on him. The eggs turned out speckled and cute, too.

Tucker loved Uncle Beau this trip, which was really sweet. He calls him “Bo-Bo.”

Everyone got to the creek around 2:00 and the little kids were all ready to hide the eggs. I was so excited that my littles got to hunt eggs with a bunch of thier cousins this year. Usually, it’s just our kids (sometimes, one or two more), but it’s never a big group like we always had when I was little.
Uncle Ronnie must have been feeling nostolgic over all those big egg hunts we had when we were all kids, because he had a plan to make even the BIG kids want to hunt. He had gotten a prize egg for every single one of the kids – from the high schoolers to the babies. Their names were written on the outside, and inside was a Reese’s egg and a ten dollar bill. Everyone had a big time searching for thier prize egg. We were all cracking up over EVERY one of the kids getting a prize egg. When we were little there was ONE prize egg. Our parents are all very different grandparents than they are parents. Ha.
It was the best afternoon with all the kids playing and all the adults just sitting around catching up. I was a terrible picture taker, and could kick myself for not lining all the kids up and getting at least one good picture of them all together or at least making sure I had everyone in a picture. :(   This one is missing five or six of the kids, but I did get it…Something about keeping up with three kids has really taken a toll on my picture abilities. Ha.  We did put sweet Luke in a basket, though. And how cute is that?!?!
It was sweet having Tucker & Hank together, too! We were all excited Steph’s family was in town for Easter, too.

Speaking of which, Steph’s totally rocking the mom-of-two-under-two role! Multi-tasking is her middle name now. :)




and my favorite picture last…

That night, we put the littles to bed with hopes that the bunny would find us all the way in North Georgia.
The next morning, they were happy to find that he had!
We got ready for church and DW snapped a few pics of the kids on Aunt Kay’s porch. We met my parents and Beau & Kristy at their church. We’d never visited their before and we really enjoyed it. Beau & Garrett sang a special and that was super sweet.
After church, we enjoyed meeting some of their church family.
Since we’d done the big Easter lunch the day before, we went out with just our family, to the Mexican restaurant. It wasn’t traditional Easter lunch, but it was fantastic. The best family picture of my little herd is this blury one, which makes me laugh with the mexican restaurant sign in the background. :)
After lunch, we sent all the men (& Tucker) home to nap, and we took the kids to see Zootopia for Garrett’s birthday. (His birthday was a couple weeks later, but since we wouldn’t be there, we celebrated early). The movie was so cute.
We headed back home on Monday morning, after a wonderful, and always too-short trip.

~amw~

Spring Break

Spring Break was early this year, and during the fair week. I wasn’t a fan for sure.
By Wednesday, I was a little worried that the highlight of the week was going to be the dead cow we came across while riding the golf cart that afternoon. (This sounds like the beginning of a “You might be a redneck if…”)
You would have thought we’d found gold. The kids thought it was the neatest thing ever. Mamie insisted we take pictures and she wanted to stand right next to it. (This says a lot, becuase she’s not usually one for many pictures). The funniest thing was when Annabelle said, “momma, we need to call the people and tell them to come clean this up.” I told her the “people” would be Pappy. She said “well, maybe he could call the office and they could take care of it.” Ha! (It hasn’t taken her long to figure out that “calling the office” (a/k/a calling her daddy), always leads to getting things fixed! :)
The kids begged to drag home one of the big bones for Judson, but I was not about to smell that rank smell for days. No thank you.
That afternoon, the fair was over, and all the big grands (Elliot, Tay, Warren & AB) headed off to the beach for their annual Spring Break trip with Nie-Nie & Kels. They stay up late, eat snacks, and basically live out thier motto “We on vacation” to the fullest while they’re there. AB only got to stay one night this year, becuase we were headed to Georgia for Easter.
On Thursday, Mom, Mamie, Tucker & I did some shopping and then drove over to the beach. We made a stop at the Volusia County Marine science center… We found it a few years ago during another cold/early spring break and we try to go once a year now.

We met the gang for dinner – and then headed home with AB.
The last part of Spring Break was Easter weekend and our trip to Georgia.
Although the first part of the week started slow, we finished it out with lots of fun between Daytona & North Georgia!
Now we’re all REALLY ready for SUMMER BREAK!!! Come on, June!!!
~amw~