Chloe's First Easter

I think Chloe had a pretty good first Easter. 

She woke up Easter morning at her father's, and I picked her up to take her right to Easter dinner, and after that she spent the night with my mother. So I never got a staged Easter photo with her Easter basket. I did, however, take a couple before dinner of her in her pretty dress that she only wore for her pictures with Santa. 

She was the life of the party. She babbled, and growled, and smiled and laughed the whole time. She's little miss personality, that's for sure. 

I spent my Monday without her cleaning our apartment. I sorted all Chloe's clothes, which is a job of its own. She has a dresser full, closet full, plus three bins full of clothes. I think I have a baby clothing addiction. I managed to sort it all, and in the process empty two of the three bins. This child has more summer dresses than she'll ever need. 

I'm at my Mom's now for the week. 

I'm just blubbering on because, as usual, I don't have a whole lot to say. 

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! 

Easter Dinner with Another Family

I got an awesome, random phone call the other day from one of my best friends, Scott, who was super sweet and invited boyfriend and I to his family's Easter dinner. At first I didn't think I could go because of work, and because they live an hour and a half away. 

But we ended up going! 

I stopped along the way to visit my sister and nephew, to see what the Easter bunny brought him. 

He was pretty happy with all his candy and chocolate, and his new toy cat. He wasn't so interested in the clothes :p

We took a picture together then I had to get back on the road. 

Easter dinner at Scott's was a lot of fun. His family is incredibly nice, where you feel comfortable like with your own family. He has a 6-month old niece and 3-week old nephew that were there too and I love seeing cute babies. 

We decorated the Easter tree while we waited for dinner to finish cooking.

It's so simple and cute. I want an Easter tree! (Does anyone else have something like this? I've never heard of them before)

We also did a quick sailor photoshoot before dinner.

Dinner was amazing. Ham, so many veggies, homemade rolls, and homemade lemon meringue or coconut cream pie for dessert. I ate two plates, plus pie, which is a lot for little me. Baby didn't go hungry that day.

We couldn't stick around for too long after dinner because I had to get back to town for work, so we left feeling happy and stuffed. It was a great Easter with someone else's family.

Our Easter Traditions

I've always been a big fan of Easter. Really, I'm just a big fan of holidays. But as I child I think I may have even loved Easter more than Christmas. I know you're incredibly anxious to hear my reasons.

1. It kind of marks the beginning of spring for me. The Easters I remember as a child always seemed to have that perfect muddy, warm, no need for coats, jump rope & bubble blowing weather.
2. Chocolate is better in the shape of eggs.
3. The Easter Bunny got us great presents: new summer outfits, bubbles, MONEY, cds, and fun summer toys.
4. Following a trail of eggs to find presents is awesome.
5. Following clues to find presents is awesome as well.
6. And of course my most favorite part of Easter:

The Cadbury Creme Egg!

Those were our traditions. The Easter Bunny would usually leave 3 candy egg trails (one for each of us kids) leading to a bunch of our presents in a different spot in the house. As we learned to read, we would still have our candy trail, but there would also be something hidden, and we would have to figure out clues to find out where it was hidden. It was always so much fun.

I love holiday traditions. We are not a very religious family so we never took part in any of the religious Easter traditions dealing with church, but I know plenty of people who do. 

I can't wait until my little one is born and a little older so I can keep our Easter traditions going.  

I'm really interested in hearing what other people do for Easter, if anything at all. Please share! 

And enjoy your chocolate-egg holiday!

Ps, Random fact? I wrote this post last year and forgot to post it.

Happy Easter

Yesterday was the most beautiful day. I have no idea the temperature, but I was getting warm in my sweater and shoes. It was a flip flop day, for sure.

I spent the first part of the day shopping and hanging out with my mother, then we picked up my nephew and spent a couple of hours with him in the park. I took over 300 pictures of him. It was my first time using the camera on a person outside. He's hard to take pictures of, always moving. And he was a bit tired and cranky so I didn't get him smiling much, but I will post a couple of those in the next few days.

In the next hour or so I will be starting to make our Easter dessert. The turkey is already in the oven.

Happy Easter!

Braden playing on a tree yesterday