A Good Egg

Happy Easter everyone! We had a great day complete with a cousin's sleepover and an egg hunt at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Gregory and the bunny in Dedham

Speaking of egg hunts, Cousin Karen Mitropolis and I took Gregory to the annual Dedham egg hunt yesterday. The kids cleared a soccer field loaded with eggs in about 90 seconds flat, reminiscent of a cloud of locusts. Gregory managed to collect 11 eggs, however when he noticed a smaller boy without any eggs, Gregory put three of his eggs in the boy's basket. Way to go Gregory!

After the egg hunt we visited the Blue Bunny bookstore owned by children's author/illustrator (and childhood friend of Karen's) Peter Reynolds. When we ran into Mr. Reynolds at the store, Karen told him about Gregory's Easter egg donation, he drew this picture for the little guy:

A good egg

Thank you to Peter Reynold's for a special gift to Gregory - I couldn't agree more!

Who's Afraid Of A Six Foot Rabbit?

Well, it's the scariest time of the year once again. No, I'm not talking about Halloween, I'm talking about the yearly visit to the Easter Bunny.

Gregory is especially taken with the bunny, and I try not to let my prejudice over the grinning, six foot rabbit color his experience.

For some inexplicable reason, I decided to subject myself to not one egg hunt, but two of them. Saturday we went to the Sterling Academy of Gymnastics Dragon Easter Egg Hunt. SAG, in their ultimate wisdom and kindness, have replaced the bunny with a less scary gigantic dragon. Much better! It was a nice event with the egg hunt, followed by jumping in the huge dragon bouncy house, face painting, and cookie decorating.

Not one to let myself off easy, I decided I had to let Gregory get his picture taken with the bunny. The Paxton library held an egg hunt this afternoon, complete with lurid leporidae. I did manage to allow my children to sit on its lap, and even get a picture.

To show you how hard this was, here's a side by side comparison of reality with what I saw in my mind.

So who's up for watching Donnie Darko next Saturday night? That's right, not me!

Easter 2009

It took me almost a week to get the Easter post up, but here it is. I took the kids to Hebert's Candy Mansion in Shrewsbury on Saturday to see the Easter Bunny. I'll pay the $20 at the mall for the picture with Santa, but the Easter Bunny? Come on. You could take your own picture at Hebert's for free so we went with that.

I have to admit, I find the Easter Bunny pretty creepy. All I can think of when I see it is Donnie Darko. Rebecca hasn't been scared by the Easter Bunny for years, but I was surprised to find out that Gregory was quite taken with it this year. He hesitated for about 10 seconds, but as soon as Rebecca sat on it's lap, Gregory ran up and joined her. I snapped 2 quick pictures and we were out of there. On the way out Gregory kept calling "see you later, Easter Bunny".

Later, we had more Easter fun dying Easter eggs, getting out the baskets, leaving out some carrots. They climbed into Rebecca's bed and I read them "The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes", which is one of my favorite books from when I was a kid. Then Rebecca asked if Gregory could sleep in her bed. Gregory seconded it with a "yeah, sleep in Bebba's bed". They reminded me so much of my sister, brother and myself when we were kids that I relented, against my better judgement. After stern warnings that they had to go right to sleep or Gregory would promptly be removed to his bed, I turned out the light and went downstairs. I logged into the computer, and my work was occasionally interrupted by "Gregory, stop hitting me" and "Gregory, no biting". That last one actually got me upstairs again. Before I could say a word, Rebecca piped up "Mom, Gregory's bothering me, but I don't care. Can he stay?". I gave Gregory his last warning - go to sleep, or else, and didn't hear another peep from them until 6:30 AM.

After a non-restful 1/2 hour of trying to get everyone to go back to sleep, Greg and I got up, let them find their baskets, put on cartoons, and tried once more to go back to sleep. I could hear strange noises coming from the living room, and when I got up to check, I found Gregory eating eggs for breakfast. More specifically, he was half way through his Cadbury Creme Egg. Not the best food for 7:30 AM, but what can you do? The sugar highs and lows continued throughout dinner at Grandma and Granpa's, and an Easter egg hunt. Oh well, happy belated Easter!

Easter Mayhem

What do you get when you get a 1, 2, 3 and 4 year old hopped up on jelly beans and put them in a room together?
Click to see the video

Easter pictures 2008

Easter Egg Hunt

Here's a couple pictures from the Paxton Library Easter Egg hunt. The kids had a great time - Rebecca found 17 eggs despite the 10 egg limit, so we gave 7 to Gregory. Rebecca was very brave and ran right up to the Easter Bunny, sat on his lap and started talking to him. When we asked Gregory if he wanted a turn his response was to hide his face against my legs. Maybe next year Gregory!