Easter 2012

It's always a little sad for me when a holiday comes around and I'm not around my family back in VA.  I was a bit sad that my boys would miss out on going to my parents house for the annual Easter egg hunt with all their cousins and my cousins and their kids.  I am used to big, chaotic holidays and I want my boys to have those experiences.  So, I was thrilled when I got a text last Thursday inviting us to a neighbors house for an Easter egg hunt.

Easter started out well.  Despite Colin waking up at 4:30, thinking it was 6:30, we still fell back asleep and got up in time to search for Easter baskets, get everyone showered and dressed and off to church in time for the 8:00 mass.  The boys love looking for their Easter baskets, and even Logan was excited this year.  Church went better than Dennis and I could have hoped for.  All 3 boys stayed in their seats pretty well (Logan of course bounced around a little, but for a just 2 year old he did well).

Colin requested another Egg Fight and since I was going to make Egg salad for lunch, it turned out perfect.  Evan opted to not participate.  At this stage in his life he is happier watching on the sidelines, rather than play and loose.  I don't think it is as much being competitive, as it is just not wanting to fail.  He is very hard on himself at times.

Anyway, after rest time we headed to our neighbors for some yummy treats and the egg hunt.  The funny thing is that Dennis and I had both given the boys a lecture before we went about not taking too much eggs and Colin said he would take 5 or so and then help the little ones.  Well, our neighbor had TONS of eggs, the boys were able to get a huge stash and even Logan was able to have a full basket.  The boys were awesome there.  There are a lot of little boys all the same ages in the neighborhood and often when they are all together, they can't keep from tackling and jumping on top of each other.  Well, we talked to the boys about not doing this and they listened and were great.  I was happy to see that a few times when boys were on the floor tackling, my boys were not involved.  Yeah, for the small victories in life!

We then got the call the Grandpa McLaughlin was at our house, so we walked back to meet him.  He stayed the night on his way back to Wisconsin from Virginia.  I made a great Easter dinner and we sat in the dining room to celebrate.  I figured since we have lived in the house for 7 months and haven't used our dining room yet, it was past time to break it in.  By the evening all the sweets and activity started to take a toll on the boys, and in usual fashion, when they are tired and overstimulated, they started to act out some.  But, there was an easy solution to that...we put them in bed a little early.

So, despite it being a quiet Easter, Easter 2012 turned out pretty perfect.

Getting Ready For Easter...

We had a good last couple of days.  Dennis and I have both been off for Colin's Spring Break.  The final inspection on the basement was done which allowed us to start bringing stuff back down in to the basement.  The basement is not completely done, they still have some staining to do on the bar and some touchups to take care of, but overall, we can start setting things up.

Friday our new couches came, so today Dennis was able to recruit a neighbor to help move the old couches down to the basement.

Today, Colin had a birthday party in the neighborhood, Dennis did some yard work and I spent the day making a couple batches of lasagna.  All 3 kids took long naps today and then after a little outside time and dinner we dyed Easter eggs.  It must have been a long day because Logan asked to go to sleep at 7.  We are all looking forward to Easter tomorrow.

Spring Break Continued...

Monday most of the family was working so my parents who were home made the wonderful offer to watch the kids so Dennis and I could go on a date.  We don't get to get out much just the two of us so we jump on the opportunity whenever it occurs.  We had a great lunch and went to see the movie, The Hunger games.  I have read the books, so I was really looking forward to it.  Dennis, despite not reading the books, enjoyed the movie just as much.

Monday night we took my parents out to dinner.  I LOVE a restaurant in Roslyn called "Cafe Asia".  It has many of our favorite foods from Singapore.  Usually we don't have time when we are home to go there, so I was very excited to get to go.  The boys were a little crazy at dinner as evidenced by about 10 chopsticks on the floor when we were ready to leave.  They also aren't huge Asian food fans.  Colin ate up the dumpling appetizer and Evan was the only one to like the Satay dinner.  But, I was thrilled to get to go anyway.

Tuesday, we met up with Grandpa McLaughlin and Miranda, who he was babysitting, at the Reston Zoo.  They had a wonderful wagon ride where you get to see the animals up real close.  It was very neat.  The boys loved it, except for Logan.  He was terrified!  Colin and Evan had a blast feeding the animals, they have become much more comfortable with this as they have gotten older.

Tuesday night we brought dinner over to Dennis' cousin Shane's house.  I was so excited to see him and Lisa's twin baby girls.  They were adorable!

Tuesday night we packed up and then played another round of Catan (board game) with my parents.  It was a great way to end our stay in VA.  We packed up and boarded a plane the next morning.  Overall, it was a great trip.  We were able to do everything we wanted to do and see a lot of people.

Spring Break in Virginia...

Friday we headed to Virginia for Spring Break.  We actually drove to Columbus and then flew from there to save money.  It worked out real well.  Flying with a 2 year old is a bit of a challenge.  He does not like to sit still for that long and doesn't have the attention span to watch a show for an hour.  Now that he loves Elmo we were able to keep him entertained with a video for at least a little while.

Friday night we went to a favorite of my families for dinner...Paradiso.  They have a kids room so all the bigger kids can eat in there and they even take the kids orders and watch them for us.  After dinner we went to Holly's house for birthday cake and presents.  Logan was thrilled to get to celebrate his birthday again.  After the presents opening the Dads took the kids home and us girls made food for my sister inlaw's, Fanchon's, baby shower the next day.

Saturday we had a great shower for Fanchon.  I think that after all the wedding and baby showers we have thrown, we have become pros.  This was our best one yet.  Since we only throw a shower for the first baby (after that we just do tea with my sisters and Mom to celebrate), we are now officially done throwing showers!  I said we should do shots to celebrate!

Saturday evening we went to Grandma and Roberts to see Dennis' family and once again we Logan got to celebrate his birthday.  The boys were introduced to Dennis' family's tradition of Egg Fights, the boys had a lot of fun and I'm sure they will want to keep that tradition up each year.  And, hopefully Evan won't cry next year when he doesn't win (a bad habit of his).

Sunday we met up with our best friends from Richmond, Mandy and Stephen.  We met at a park in Great Falls and the kids were thrilled to see each other again.  It was fun to catch up with them, since we haven't seen each other since last summer.

Sunday evening my family came over to my Mom's for dinner (we had a ton of leftovers from the shower) and we played our favorite board game while the kids had a movie night.  The boys were introduced to Star Wars and are now hooked!  I continued to play another round of the board game, while Dennis went to visit with his friend Jeremy.    The kids had a blast playing with their cousins.  It always makes me a little sad that they don't get to hang out together more often.

Happy 2nd Birthday Logan!!!

 Yikes, can't believe I have no babies under 2 in the house anymore!  Logan at 2 is so much fun.  He is talking a ton, I can no longer give a number of how many words he says.  He tries to repeat a lot of what we say.  My favorite is that he calls me "Ma".  He sometimes says "Ma Ma".  He is so cute when he says "Read Ma" (pronounced weed Ma).  Or "Milk Ma" (pronounced mak Ma).  He calls his big brothers "Lo" (Colin) and "E" for Evan.

He is very demanding and strong willed, but also very loving and social.  I think he is the most outgoing of the three at this age.  He loves to wave "bye bye" to people and give hugs.  He is active and tries to keep up with his big brothers.  They can't go outside without him wanting to go too.

Logan continues to LOVE shoes.  All shoes.  He can be found wearing snow boots with shorts or anyone in the houses shoes. He also now LOVES Elmo.  Every time he sees Elmo, he calls out "Elmo" very loud.  When we were driving in the car once there just happened to be an Elmo in a nearby car and he spotted it and called Elmo!

He is an ok eater, though can be picky with some things.  He loves to dip anything in ketchup or ranch or any other dip.  He will also eat ketchup with his fork all on its own.  If he won't eat something all we have to do is ask if he wants to dip it and that usually works.

Logan had his well checkup today.  He is 34 3/4in (50%) for height and 30.2 lbs (75%) for weight.  I felt real bad having a doctors appointment on his birthday so I was happy to hear he didn't need any shots.

Since we don't have family here in Indy, we didn't do a party.  I picked up some yummy cupcakes for us to have after dinner and he enjoyed us singing to him.  He was thrilled to open the Elmo guitar we got for him and he started dancing to the music.