Easter Cuteness - 1

We celebrated Easter with brunch at Coco and Poppy's house. That Sunday was warm and sunny, making it actually feel like spring. I came home with over 300 pictures from the day. Thanks to Holly for getting behind the camera for some of it, too!

Elliott started the morning in style.

The boys were pumped for Jeep weather.

Penny was not excited about riding with them.

Mike came to her rescue.

We still had the centerpiece from Jen's baby shower (pictures of that to come). We grew this batch of wheatgrass and made the raindrops falling from the chandelier. The decorations got an Easter makeover courtesy of the peeps hiding in the grass.

Ted and Jen (and the growing boys in her belly).

After brunch, the egg hunt began. This is Ned's searching face.

Elliott had to find all the green eggs. Ned spotted one of Elliott's eggs and showed him the way. Blurry picture but I love the hand holding!

Found it!

Getting ready to check out the loot in their Easter buckets.

How great is this picture?

My little man playing with his new cars.

Elliott loves Coco and Poppy!

Poppy and his two grandsons. His arms will soon be outnumbered by grandsons after Ted and Jen's babies arrive.

The boys wrestled and squealed with delight.

Holly took these wonderful pictures of Lucy and me. I tried to get Elliott to join us but he wanted nothing to do with it.

Dressing a girl is so fun!

Elliott was too busy riding with Ned to break for pictures.

Lucy tolerated the Jeep. Ned is very careful with her.

Until she looked away from the camera and he tried to turn her head back.

Lucy found herself in the mirror and it was too cute to pass up a mini photo session. Getting some support from Uncle Teddy.

Hi Friend!

She spotted Mama.

Big smiles for Mama, Aunt Hol, and Coco. 

Lucy and all of the big girls. We were only missing Penny!

More Easter pictures to come in the next post, including an awesome series of all four cousins.

Easter Eggs

We had a wonderful day at home last Saturday. It was just the kids and me in the morning and then Holly, Ned, and Penny came out for an afternoon of fun.

Pre-shower snuggles. There is a series of similar naked-bum pictures of my siblings and me.

While Lucy napped, Elliott and I baked, did dishes, and washed the shower toys. (PSA: wash your bath/shower toys. They get gross!!)

Elliott was pumped to do some scrubbing.

I mentioned last week how Elliott has been pushing the limits outside. He hit a new limit on Saturday. Most of you know the story of Jesse's truck being stolen and involved in a police shootout while we lived in DC. But did you know that that very truck lives at our house in hopes of being married to a 1972 Ford to make one happy, smooth truck? For now, it's a really classy lawn ornament. And apparently a not-so-safe play place for Elliott. I still don't know how he managed to get inside.

This was awesome. Ned was riding the tricycle down our driveway and Elliott was pushing him back up. Totally something an older cousin would convince a younger cousin to do.

The boys were FILTHY so they went right into the shower.

After getting cleaned and fed, we squeezed in a brief egg dying session before bedtime. Being Coco's daughter and Ted's sister, we had an Abino Mills style assortment of egg dying vessels.

Watching in wonder.

It's getting harder and harder to get my subjects to look at the camera.

Holly corralled this event and did a great job. Check out her two-tone egg!

We were all intrigued by the little bubbles on the eggs.

Ned was very proud of his two-tone egg.

Hello, Mike Ortman, Jr.

Little Penny sat in her seat and participated from afar as we loaded her up with watermelon.

Getting all the kids ready for bed is always amusing (and/or frustrating).

Ned held Lucy for me while I looked for something in Holly's car. I love the cousin love among this group.

Lucy - Crawling and a New Tree!

Ruth, my fairy godmother, is an incredibly talented artist. She offered to paint something in Lucy's room. I pondered several themes for her room and settled on safari, mostly because we have a few great things from our trip to South Africa in 2004 that would look great in there. I found a tree I liked online and Ruth brought it to life. She started by freehanding the outline in chalk and then went to work with the paint.

Lucy played on the floor for a while and started crawling!!

During a brush cleaning break, Lucy got to play with a brush.

She loved it!

I love her noises. She growls.

Maybe she will have an artistic bone in her body, unlike her mama.

Almost done.

The master at work. Ruth painted all of the beautiful walls at my parents' house.

Lucy sat in her crib and watched Ruth paint.

The final product. Thank you, Ruth!

Getting kisses from Dutch.

I am so in love with this tree. I smile every time I see it, even at 2 am. And 4 am.

We stopped by the Mayers' house for a quick hello before they left for vacation. Everyone was eager to love on Lucy.

Lincoln went right in for snuggles. Tucker posed for me.

We picked up Elliott from school and went to the smaller grocery store in town. I really don't like this store but I love the little carts they have for Elliott! 

He had a complete conversation with this store employee and told her about everything he had in his cart.

Lucy has not really expressed love for food yet. As an experiment, I gave her a chunk of banana one night. Warning: this video is about as exciting as watching paint dry. I call it "our three minute experiment with baby led weaning" or "Lucy and the Banana."