Easter Weekend-Saturday

On the Saturday before Easter we headed to Hillcrest Park in Fullerton for an Easter Egg hunt hosted by the Rotary Club.  They said there were 12,000 eggs and we guessed there were about that many kids!  It was really crowded!  The fire department even brought the Easter Bunny to the park so the kids could get a picture with him.  Mike almost got mandatoried to work, but the chief must have called about three minutes after we walked out the door.  So luckily daddy was hunting eggs with us and not driving the fire truck! 

 You can kind of see the crowds in this photo.  And we got there early, so it was really hard for Wes (and the other kids) to stay behind the yellow caution tape and watch those eggs for 25 minutes! 

 And they're off!!! Luckily Mike was holding Wes' hand or he would have been mowed over by the other kids.  I love this photo because it looks like Mike is dragging Wes to the eggs :)

 Wes stopped at the first eggs he saw but the other kids seemed to swoop up the eggs and keep moving.  Mike said it was like watching a swarm of locust...nothing was left in their path!

 Wes would pick up an egg and then try to open it.  We need to teach him to collect the eggs first and look for the treats after!

 This was hilarious...the whole egg hunt took about three minutes so it was a little chaotic.  I was taking pictures with Cora in the carrier and Mike was making sure Wes didn't get run over and got a few eggs too.  Then all of a sudden I noticed Wes had something in his mouth and I asked him what he was eating (I hadn't seen the contents of the eggs yet) and he fished this out of his mouth...a purple bunny eraser!  Poor kid had been gnawing on it for a while!  Another thing to explain...there isn't always candy in Easter eggs!

The Easter bunny looked suspiciously like Bugs. 

 After the hunt we went to Laguna Lake Park for a stroll around the lake.

After our walk, we headed home for some lunch, snoozers and a little nudie time for Cora :)

It was such a beautiful day that after Wes woke up from his nap, Mike took him in the "hot pool" (aka the Jacuzzi).  Cora was still sleeping so I took the monitor (and a Malibu and Pineapple) and sat in a lounge chair for a few minutes and watched Wes and Mike play and enjoyed the afternoon sun.  It was only about 10 minutes, but it was very relaxing!  This was Wes' first time back in the water since last year but it only took him about 5 minutes to warm back up to it.  After that he was diving back in, right where he left off last year.  Hopefully this kid will be swimming on his own shortly!

And after Cora woke up from her nap, she was ready to hit the hot pool too!  Love this little bikini that was a hand-me-down from Auntie Jessica and Gia.

 First time in the pool!

 Big brother was so excited to show her the ropes. 

After the swimming was over, we BBQ'd some hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner:

 Mike thought Cora looked so hungry munching on her fingers that we should skip rice cereal all together and move straight to hot dogs.  I don't know, a Hebrew National with mustard and onions...very tempting!

Good Friday

On Good Friday we headed to Verizon Wireless Amphitheater to remember the day our Lord was crucified on the cross for our sins.  It was a beautiful day and we always love hearing the special worship music and hearing Pastor Chuck's message.  And this year Auntie Madison and Grandpa Al came with us, so that was extra special! 

 We sat on the grass just like last year which was a nice for Wes and Cora. 

Of course Wes had to sit under the umbrella with his sister! 

At about halfway through the service, I was thinking how prepared I was...I had brought Cora's hat, diapers, burp rags and pacifier and Wes had asked for snacks, which I had brought, he asked for toys, which I had brought and he asked for a drink, which I also brought. But the verse "pride goeth before a fall" comes to mind, because shortly after that Wes had a major potty accident and guess what I didn't bring??  Yep, a change of clothes...though I brought a pull-up, thank the Lord!!  So Wes spent the second half of Good Friday service in a t-shirt and a pull-up.  Thank you Lord for reminding me to stay humble and that pants aren't always necessary :)

Luckily God hears our prayers no matter how many fashion laws we're breaking!

Wesley took his first communion at Good Friday service as well.  I wasn't sure if he should participate since he's so little, but my mom said she has heard Pastor Dave teach that it's ok for kids to take communion. Plus in CBS they have been teaching the kids that Jesus is Alive! and he knows that he died on the cross for our sins and rose again so think it was really special that he was able to share in this important part of our faith. 

Here's some video's that Auntie Madison took:  

Wes did great being patient and waiting until Pastor Chuck said we could eat the wafer and then drink the juice (the second video is a little bit longer since we had to wait while Pastor Chuck reminded us to be good examples and throw away all of our trash.)  Wesley liked the grape juice part of communion the best, he even asked for more!

Afterwards we came back to our house for lunch and some visiting.

And Auntie Madison brought Wes and Cora a special gift...a  new toy box!  It's hand made by a friend of hers and Wes loves it!  He's keeping his bigger cars in it and I'm loving having them tucked away rather that our in the living room :)

Happy Good Friday friends and family!

Easter Preparation

Auntie Chrissy didn't host an Easter party this year, but we were able to get together to play and dye some Easter eggs.  It was a beautiful day and the boys and girls got to play and the mommies got to visit (a little).  Thanks for having us over Auntie Chrissy!

Here's Wes writing his "name" on his egg.

And here was my Easter decor project: an egg garland.  I also made one for my mantle above the fire place.  Love this simple craft!  

Another thing we did to get in the Easter spirit was to make Jello Jiggler eggs.  I got this egg mold free like a million years ago and have never used it.  Michael has been trying to get me to throw it out for years, but I held firm and now look how much fun we had :)  We made green, red, orange, and blue jello eggs. We got a little impatient for our first batch to set up, so we had egg halves, but after that they were perfectly egg shaped!

Gardening!

Recently, Wesley has been asking a lot about plants and how things grow, so we decided to throw our hats into the gardening ring and plant a garden of our own.  If you know our house, you know we don't have a yard, but we have a neighbor with a side yard that wasn't being used, so she said we could plant our garden there.  Here are the pictures of our gardening project:

The first step in planting a garden is a trip to Home Depot to purchase a new shovel.  And a few other things like wood and nails to build the planter boxes, but Wes was definitely most excited about the shovel. 

The next step is building the planter boxes, which requires some measuring... 

...and some drilling... 

...and some leveling.  Pictures of the completed planter boxes later.

The next step requires some plant purchasing.  Our friend Nadine told us of a plant sale to support a local library in their area, so we headed to Long Beach one Saturday morning to pick the fruits and vegetables we wanted to grow.  Here's Wes picking a tomato plant...

...and of course, his favorite, strawberries.  The complete list of what we planted a little later.

Next up, filling the completed planter boxes with soil.

Here's Wes with his prized shovel getting ready to plant!

The next step is to get these plants in the ground!

Michael said Wes had to have this red tomato cage when he saw it at Home Depot.  Red is his favorite color.

Wes liked the planting, but he was really into these giant rocks they dug out of our plot.  (He also loves volcanoes right now, so there were lots of pretend eruptions going on!)

Now that the plants are in the ground, they needed a good watering.

And here's our completed garden!  Prayerfully it will produce something edible!

Here's what we planted:

                                         Pineapple Tomato, Two more tomato plants, Several Red and Green Bell Peppers, Onions, Italian Roasting Peppers                                             

                                           Butternut Squash                        Zucchini

                                           Strawberries  

And the last and most fun part of planting a garden...making mud!  After watering the beds and cleaning up all our spilled dirt, there was quite a mud puddle for Wes to jump in.  He still is asking to make more mud!  My friends who have a few seasons of gardening under there belts say there is a learning curve when it comes to growing edibles, but we have had fun so far and hopefully Wes is learning something about where food comes from.  Keep you posted on our progress!