Easter

 For the tenth year, Eric and I have undertaken dying eggs with our children.  And we have yet to figure out a way to do this without making a mess...but, doing it outside helps.

 Everyone is so excited to dye the eggs.  But, this is the quintessential 'hurry up and wait' activity. 

 It is also difficult to help the 3 year old understand to not just drop all of the eggs in the same mug...or any mug of his choosing when there are other kids waiting patiently.  Tears were shed, but in the end we got some lovely colors.

And just for reference here is a shot from our first egg dying experience with Dom a decade ago with our friend, Jeff:

 Huh...that oven mitt is not nearly as white now...

 Easter Sunday dawned early and everyone put on their finest.  I love Easter weekend.  We were able to attend Holy Thursday and Good Friday services.  And Easter Sunday is always beautiful and uplifting.  Christus Vincit!

We got a few pictures in front of the Altar.  John wasn't super impressed.

 Until he got to pose with the flowers.  And the Easter Ham made his appearance.

 For our Easter Egg hunt, Eric made the older three wait while John had a head start.  Didn't help him a whole lot.  He walked by several.  Found one, and took nearly his whole allotted start time opening it to get at the candy inside.

 Molly also got a slight head start.  She did not waste any time:

That girl was on a mission and cleaned up several before the boys even got out of the door.

 Our children do not have a great strategy for looking.  They all just follow whoever takes off first.

 Eventually, we were down to the harder to find eggs.  Eric originally hid them in plain view.  I re-hid several to make it a bit more challenging...since we have a 10 year old and Will...not just John.

 Eventually all eggs were found (or so we thought...turns out there were a few still out).  Molly was thrilled with her haul.  Will spent a good bit of time decrying the unfairness of it all.  I pointed out that he probably shouldn't have followed Molly or Dom and he might have found more...he did not appreciate my critique of his egg hunting abilities.

 Along with the eggs, we hid several communal gifts around the house.  Mainly bubbles, sidewalk chalk, and odds and ends.  However, the kids also received Dino Dig eggs.  Dom and Will had used these at a science program at the library and loved them.  It was an activity for everyone and Eric and I got in our Easter cribbage game while they worked away at the excavation. 

 That evening, we went to a friend's house and shared dinner with two other families.  The kids played in their pool where John was able to jump from the edge to one of our boys  and they would help him back to the edge.  Eric was right there, but never actually had to get in the water.  It was pretty awesome.

It was a really wonderful Easter Sunday spent with family and friends.  Even if I lost our cribbage game...

And for reference, our family Easter portrait from a decade ago:

I agree, we have all improved with age ;)