Easter Egg Hunt and Family Dinner

My Mom commented that my house is the "party house," which I love and sometimes hate.  If I'd known it would go down like this, I would have made sure we were building a house with a giant dining room.  Next time.  (What am I saying?!  There is no next time.)  Even though Brian had a 120 hour work week last week, I still wanted to have a beautiful table and great food for our family Easter party.  That meant going to the store with all the children once (never ever twice) and listening to crying (for no reason other than I wasn't holding both of the babies and bouncing them constantly) while I made my now traditional Coconut Cake.  I also cleaned my blinds.  As I was doing it I thought, "What is wrong with me?  No one will notice that I did this and I have a million other things to do."  Brian noticed.  Totally worth it.

A party isn't a party unless Gabriel ("Graybiel") and Claire are here.  Bridget and Gabriel were both sweaty after five minutes of playing.  Grandpa hid some eggs in the backyard and we made the kids stand in the door for some photos before THE HUNT began.

Notice Claire has the basket hooked over her arm like a purse. :)

There's my beautiful girl.

Grandpa made the eggs pretty easy to find and yet I saw both Bridget and Gabriel walk right by several.

I love that Bridget has a Stegosaurus since her hair was perfectly in place five seconds before the cousins arrived.

Claire is wearing most of Bridget's silly bands.  It's the first thing she does when she comes to play.

Time out to put the grass back in the basket.

We had the kids stand by the fence with their findings.  Makenzie asked Gabriel to add some eggs to Claire's basket, so he took one of her two eggs and tried to add it to his basket.  Ah, the gap between what we say and what kids hear.

Then it was time for dinner.  We had a Honeybaked Ham, "Yellow" Potatoes, Sarah's Salad (it had been way too long since we've had that), homemade (by Makenzie) rolls, and two sliced and cooked carrots.  I put two tables together and used one of my Oasis table runners on a tablecloth I made (ha!  I just hemmed it) with 108" wide Oasis fabric.  Win!

We put a little salad in Gabriel's bowl.  He took one bite and turned the plate upside-down over the big bowl of salad, "I don't like this."  More for the rest of us!  (He also bonked his head on the table during the prayer and didn't make a peep until the prayer was over.  Awww.)

That's David's sister, Jessica, on Mom's right.  She needs to come live with me because she is a Baby Whisperer.

Colin wishes he was napping right now.

Brian had to eat and run, but there's always time to talk to Emil.

That's my lovely cake under Mom's beehive cake dome.

I was going to post pictures of Easter morning, but this is already long.  Next time. :)