Easter Lilly

...and Ian and "Kaffee" (Kathy).

The visit from the Easter Bunny was pretty special, but even that couldn't compare with another visit from Lilly. Rylee has nothing but love for my cousin Lilly. She wants to be with her 100 percent of the time, preferably playing just the two of them. Hey, no arguments from the rest of us! :)

 

Kathy, Ian and Lil came over for a simple brunch on Easter morning. Jon whipped up some waffles, bacon & eggs and we ate outside on the patio. It was delightful. I bought the kids some Easter goodies - candy for Lil and Crispy Cremes for Ian (that boy is a donut connoisseur, but Crispy Cremes are his new fave).

After breakfast, I let Ian and Lil hide Rylee's Easter eggs in the backyard. I had recycled all the candy from the Easter party on Saturday and put them in our eggs. I thought this was an inspired choice since it limited the amount of candy Rylee would "get". Jon just thought it was "ghetto". :)

The kids did a fantastic job of hiding the eggs in interesting places without making it too hard. Rylee really had fun hunting for them under tables, in her play house, under her swing sets and other toys. Here she is finding one in the net of her basketball hoop.

 

After she found all the eggs, she shared a couple with Ian and Lil (sigh). "Give me your hands, Daddy" meant it was time to go inside to open the eggs up. That was the system they had devised during the party the day before - she would open the eggs and let whatever was inside fall into Jon's hands. It was cute.

We finished the day playing in the pool as the Minnesotans were trying to soak up the last bit of their sun and fun vacation. Rylee was very disappointed when they all had to go. Ian finally coaxed her out of her pout by suggesting that she wave at the plane as they flew by and they would wave back. Three minutes after they had left the house, she threw open the sliding glass door when a particularly loud plane was flying overhead. "Goodbye" she screamed while giving a big over the head wave. :)

It was a lovely Easter indeed.

 

Easter Morning

I knew Rylee would want to look for her Easter baskets (yes baskets, there were three) as soon as she got up so Jon and I met her upstairs with her chocolate milk and got her dressed. Once downstairs, she was very enthusiastic about hunting down her baskets. She was tip-toeing around and putting her hands up in a bunny hop pose. It would have been a cute picture, but Jon had the video camera and I was pulling up the rear (literally) with the digital camera. I did think this rear end shot of her looking under the couch was pretty funny though. :)

 

She found the small basket first. It had a cute cupcake trinket box and a cupcake necklace inside. Though she likes the necklace, she loves the box! She's been carrying that little cupcake around and sleeping with it too. Here is she finding the medium basket under the dining room table. There were flip flops and sunglasses in this basket. You'll notice in the next photo that the sunglasses were a big hit as well.

 

She found her big basket last and although it was filled with stickers, tattoos, candy and books - she really only had eyes for Ariel. This bath time fun Ariel is what she asked the Easter Bunny for so she was very excited to see that he had received her message!

 

I have a couple more Easter posts to compose, but I have to interject one funny Rylee story. Something about the Easter Bunny's fur reminded Rylee of Santa Claus.

Rylee: I can't kiss Santa Claus.

Me: Why? Because of his beard?

Rylee: Ya.

Me: You can't kiss people with beards?

Rylee: No! That's ridiculous! (If only you could have heard the tone of her voice when she scolded me. Priceless.)

Happy Birthday Gaga!

Happy Birthday Gaga! I sure do miss you. I was at your house yesterday, but you weren't there! It wasn't any fun. I can't wait to see you in MN - only a couple more weeks now. Let the countdown begin! Love, Rylee

 

Happy Birthday Mom! I miss you too. Can't wait for our "summer" to begin. Try to get rid of the cold and snow for us by then. :) Love, Shannon

Egg Hunt #2

Rylee had another fun Easter egg hunt today.

 

Our friends hosted an egg dyeing/ egg hunting party at their house. The kids (and adults) had a great time. First the kids dyed their eggs. They were all really into it, especially James (the littlest) - he dunked his whole hands as well as his eggs so he was sporting Incredible Hulk hands the rest of the day (as I'm assuming he will be for a few more days!).

After a quick snack to energize, the kiddos were ready to hunt down some eggs. Rylee with Miller and Norah pre-hunt:

 

Rylee was like a wild woman with the eggs this time around. She wasted no time as she ran around scooping up every egg in her path until her basket was over-flowing. I think she was a bit of an egg hog really. Oops! Once her basket was full, she was happy to help James (below) and Miller. Miller was opening each egg as he found it so that really slowed down his process. :)

 

All this egg hunting is starting to warp her reality. Once the kids were back inside, she kept grabbing toys that were spherical or oval and asking us to open them to find the jelly beans! Good times, good times! :)

Easter Egg Hunt #1

Yesterday, Rylee and I went to an Easter egg hunt/ potluck with our Mommies group. I think we hid eggs for Rylee on past Easters, but she doesn't remember it (I'm a little fuzzy on it myself). Let's just say she was very excited to give it a try. Here she is waiting for the hunt to begin with basket in hand.

 

Most of the kiddos in our Mommy group are a little to a lot younger than Rylee so hiding the eggs consisted of just placing them out in the grass. They had us all line up on the sidewalk and then begin. I was impressed that Rylee ran out ahead of me in her excitement. (I must admit that I do have a picture from two seconds later when she was looking over her shoulder to find me!)

 

"Finding" her first bunch of eggs. :)

 

All the eggs were filled with tattoos, stickers and fruit snacks so Rylee was able to keep all her loot. She was very excited about that until... the Easter Bunny came. She barely liked him from this distance. When I tried to walk her up close she said, "he has a beard." We all know how Rylee feels about facial hair! (Are there any clean shaven holiday icons?)

 

One funny Rylee story: She really wanted to get into the kiddie pool, but by the time we made our way over their after lunch it was pretty crowded (a tiny 4 foot wading pool with about 8 kids in it). She patiently waited for people to leave and then braved it's murky, grass filled waters when there was just her and another boy. She seemed to be handling it okay until... the boy splashed her. She stood up, got the most indignant look on her face and said, "I'm going home to play in my pool. Mommy, let's go." Everyone standing around burst out laughing. She is such a drama queen!

Tidbits

Rylee got her test results back and she didn't show any food allergies - yeah! As of right now, we only have the lactose intolerance to deal with. At least we're used to that.

Rylee and I had to make two trips to Target today, back to back. Somehow the checkout girl forgot to give us one of our items. Of course she had charged us for it so we had to go back. Oh and it was the one toy that Rylee had picked out too!

I had a couple of other silly Rylee things that I was going to share, but honestly I'm exhausted! Maybe another day...

Comings & Goings

We had a busy week with family coming and going.

Going:
My Mom left for MN on Tuesday and Rylee has yet to fully forgive her. Rylee kept warning my Mom that she didn't want her to go and that "she needed her" so I guess we shouldn't have been surprised. She wouldn't hug my Mom goodbye at the airport and for several days kept zipping her lips and throwing away the key every time my Mom called! Rylee did say she loved her today and blew her a few kisses over the phone so hopefully she's getting over it. (My Mom thinks Rylee got the grudge-holding part of her personality from her so I guess she only has herself to blame!)

Coming:
On Wednesday night, my Mom's cousins were in town (my second cousins I guess, but they feel more like an Aunt and Uncle). They stopped over for a quick visit and some pizza before heading over to Naples. Rylee was absolutely cookoo. They don't have grandkids yet so I'm sure they're not used to naughty toddler behavior. It wasn't exactly the impression we would have liked to make! :)

Last night my Aunt, Kathleen, and my cousins, Ian & Lillian, were in town. They came over for some pool time and dinner. Lucky for them, Rylee was a perfect angel! Rylee loves Lil, always has, so she was beyond excited to see her and play with her last night. And since it's Lil's birthday in a couple of days, Rylee and I made her cupcakes. There's nothing Rylee likes more than cupcakes, "fire" (candles) and singing "Happy Birthday" so she was doubly excited. We let her stay up later than normal and then let Lil help put her to bed. I'm pretty sure Rylee fell asleep with a smile on her face last night (and she slept in past 7:30 this morning so we had no complaints there). The best news is that they will be able to see us on the back end of their trip too. They'll be in town next Saturday night and we're even planning an Easter brunch with them before they leave on Sunday. It's an unexpected Easter treat to have family on the holiday.