Easter 2012

We had a lovely Easter this year.  Holidays are always pretty hectic and I feel like we don't even really get the chance to enjoy them.  We are always expected to go multiple places and I have tried to keep it at a limit of 2 - otherwise we spend more of the day running around than anything.  Rudy has both sides of family in town (we usually don't make it to the festivities w/ his dad's side), plus there's my family.  Since none of our extended family live here we have a group of people that we usually spend holidays with.  Now that we have our own family, I really want to start some of our own traditions and I have been feeling the need to "simplify" the way we spend our holidays.  This year the times of events were conflicting, so we didn't make it to eat with my family.  Rudy's family gathers at the park and there are lots of kids and they do a big egg hunt.  We decided that would be the most fun for Ryder since there wouldn't be any other kids at my family/friends gathering - and it's not really a kid friendly house.

We woke up and had breakfast, gave Ryder his Easter basket and did his Easter egg hunt IN THE BACKYARD - which was amazing!!  Then we got ready and went to church.  We go to a big service at the convention center.  I was nervous about taking Ryder because I knew he wouldn't want to sit quietly for the whole thing - with all the music it lasts nearly 2 hours.  I also was not about to put him in the nursery with people I don't know, especially considering thousands of people attend the service.  He hung in there for most of the service and then Rudy's dad took him out for the last part.

After church, we headed to the park and stopped at my parent's house so this pregnant lady could use the bathroom.  We enjoyed good food and Ryder had a blast running around and pulling the huge ice chest all over the place.  It's a good thing we didn't plan to go anywhere else because I was COMPLETELY exhausted after that.  All I wanted to do was come home and put my feet up.  We all ended up taking a 2 hour nap and it was wonderful.  My parents and grandma stopped by for a little while on their way home and we spent the rest of the evening hanging out in our backyard, which we are completely loving.  It's so great to have an outdoor space that we want to spend time in every day.  Before I didn't even like to look out there or have the curtains open.

Here are some pictures from the day ... I failed miserable at taking them after we left the house.  Didn't even get a family picture .... bummer.

Ryder wasn't quite ready for egg dying this year and was over it in about 2 minutes, but Rudy and I had fun with it

Ryder's basket

Elmo!

Elmo got tossed to the floor when he noticed the Hot Wheels

And then he discovered the chocolate bunny ... which was more for decoration because I can tell you we're not giving it to him!

Easter egg hunt!!  It took a little coaxing to get going and he wanted to open each one as he found them

He opened one with a peep inside and was completely grossed out by the stickiness! HA!

There were some eggs that had cars inside, but some of  the cars wouldn't fit in the eggs so we just hid the cars and he was so excited to find those!

At the end of the day, just laying in the grass