Happy Easter!

I wanted to share some pictures of Easter from past years for something fun and different. Here is one of my favorites from when I was young, coloring Easter eggs with my mom at my grandparents' clubhouse. My grandparents live on the same property now, but when this picture was taken, we would just take little weekend trips there. The clubhouse is one bedroom, a small kitchen and a living/dining room. There was no bathroom when this picture was taken-yep, we used an outhouse! There is a bathroom in there now:) The clubhouse aka Happy Landing and all of the memories made there deserves it's own post!

1988-I think!

This was originally intended to document Brennan's Easters so here is Brennan's first Easter, officially.

I was about 14 weeks pregnant with Brennan in these pictures.

This is a terrible picture, but I wanted to include it since it's of Casey and I-let's chalk up to the angle and I was pregnant;)

Here are pictures from Brennan's first celebratory Easter in 2008...

Mommy and Brenny~that's what I used to call him:)

First photo with the bunny. He didn't mind one bit!

I was so not happy with JC Penney and these pictures at the time, but I love them now and I am so glad I have them!

Easter 2009

Easter 2010-LOVED the bunny!

Easter 2011

Brennan made bunnies for Reese and Scotlyn last year:)

2012...

This morning hunting:)

The Easter bunny brought this awesome butterfly pavilion with a caterpillar to butterfly book-I can't wait to get our larvae! Brennan also got a couple of Easter books, shark jammies and shark swim trunks.

I don't post a lot about Reese and Scotlyn, but they are still very much missed by our family. We think about them and talk about them often. Our holidays are certainly not the same without those special little girls here to celebrate with us. This would be their first Easter that they would be running around hunting for eggs with Brennan and that is weighing heavily on my mind and my heart. I try to focus on the memories we do have with them, which is not nearly enough, but it's impossible not to think about what should be. I hope they are hunting for many beautiful golden eggs in Heaven<3

Spring and Easter Fun

We have been doing some fun projects at home. We have always done different crafts and projects at home, but I have been more on a teaching mission to get into the groove for homeschooling next year. I mean, officially next year, we are always looking for learning opportunities now, too.

Here he is making his own Angry Bird:)

We also made a nest out of yarn, the glue and brown paint is the 'mud' birds use to keep the nest together:) We read a book about robins and their eggs and nests.

We had to let it set overnight.

Meanwhile we painted eggs to go in the nest.

Since the book about robins described the daddy bird 'guarding the nest', Brennan's angry bird turned into the daddy bird to guard the eggs:)

Brennan had fun hunting for eggs at school.

and at home with his friends...

The Easter Bunny even came to our house!

We dyed eggs yesterday, too.

Last year we got a really cute dinosaur kit, you can take a look here. We couldn't find the dinosaur kit, but of course got one with animals-jungle animals!

Easter Festivites

We went to Eckert's today for an Easter egg hunt and visit with The Easter Bunny:) Brennan was SO excited to see the bunny! He loves costumed characters!

Playing fivesies with the bunny.

We even saw some friends there including this sweet little guy:)

We held some chicks and bunnies, too.

Brennan got a face painting of a tiger and here he is imitating one:)

Happy Easter!

Brennan woke up very crabby this Easter morning-late to bed, early to rise is his motto. It never works out well for him though.

He was very happy when he saw that the Easter bunny had visited our home. Unfortunately, it has been so wet and rainy here that the Easter bunny couldn't hide the eggs outside:( Come to think of it, I don't think we have ever had an egg hunt outside at our house on Easter morning...some day we will I'm sure. I was so busy video taping him hunting his eggs I didn't get any pictures of him in action.

He of course had to watch Spider Man immediately after receiving his characters.

Brennan loves this book and we have been reading it a lot lately with Easter. It is about a mouse named Owen that gets different kinds of candy in his basket and he eats it all up except the marshmallow chick. He is fond of his marshmallow chick so he keeps him. Very cute story so I put the same candy that was in Owen's basket in Brennan's basket-a chocolate bunny, jelly beans, buttercream eggs and a little marshmallow chick:)

Last night we had Easter dinner with my mother-in-law and Casey's aunt from Peoria. We had a very nice time visiting and Brennan enjoyed all of the goodies he got there:) Today we're having brunch at my dad's house and dinner at my mom's house with my grandparents. We are so lucky to live near most of our family and get to enjoy these holidays with them:)

I picked up these little decorative Easter eggs at Eckert's the other day. I got one for Brennan, one for Reese and one for Scotlyn.

This week Brennan and I took a trip to Build A Bear to make Reese and Scotlyn bunnies for Easter. Brennan's room is decorated in Cardinals so when I was pregnant with him we got him a Fred Bird Build A Bear. We bought him unstuffed and recorded Brennan's heart beat on a recordable device then placed the device in Fred Bird and had him stuffed. I wanted to do the same for Reese and Scotlyn so I bought 2 recordable devices while I was pregnant with them and recorded their heart beats. It has been so hard for me to even look at them much less listen to them, but I decided this is a good time to take Brennan and let him pick out their animals. This is what he chose:)

Trying to decide which one...

Picking their hearts, kissed each one:)

Putting the heart in...

Giving them baths (he couldn't wait to do this!)

Little beauties:)

Today is Reese and Scotlyns' 9 month birthday. I miss them every moment of every day and I wish more than anything that they were here with us.