Easter Weekend - Part 2

We had a wonderful Easter day. We woke up early and Ethan was up shortly after so we brought him downstairs to see what the Easter Bunny had brought him! Ethan dug right into his basket, it was so much fun to watch him pull everything out.

Bunny cup!

Monkey Wubanub

Giraffe bucket for the beach!

New big boy sippy cups, sans handles

Bubble blower gun

"What did you put on my head now?"

New books!

Gator swim outfit

Gator beach towel and pool float

All done!

After we opened up Easter gifts, we had breakfast and played for a while and then it was time for Ethan's morning nap. While he was napping I worked on my frosting for my Easter cupcakes. They came out really cute!

After finishing my cupcakes, it was time to shower and get everyone ready to head to my Aunt Linda's. I was just dying over my little Ethan. He looked so dapper in his Easter best! We took some family pictures before we left the house.

We arrived at my Aunt Linda and Uncle Jim's house for brunch. It was a small crowd this year since many of the families were on Spring Break. Everything was so nice and brunch was delicious!

After we ate, the kids headed outside since it was so beautiful out. My sister had brought a bubble wand that Lily had received for Easter so she was blowing bubbles for all of the kids. They all loved it, they ran around chasing the bubbles and burned off some energy!

Bubbles!

Sara and Ava

Beautiful Bella Bear with Lily

Lily loves bubbles!

Papa and Grandma with Ethan and Lily

Arla, Teddy and Lily

The whole family

After some pictures and dessert it was time to feed the gators! Isn't that how everyone celebrates Easter?!!! My Uncle is a reptile expert and has a full reptile exhibit in his basement. He brought everyone down to see Bubba and feed some of the animals.

After the gator feeding, Ethan was starting to get restless so we packed up and headed home for an afternoon nap break before heading to Michael's parents house to celebrate with his family. Ethan was re-charged and ready to go. Grandma and Grandpa had an Easter basket waiting for him when he arrived!

Rich and Tif came with Jacob and Makayla and they opened up their Easter baskets next! Jacob wasn't having my picture taking, but I got a few in! Ethan got a basket from Aunt Tif and Uncle Rich too!

Then it was time to eat, Ethan was ready! He chowed down on sausage, ham, bread, jello, fruit salad and even tried Michael's Grandma's famous beets. He loved everything and ate a ton!

Great Grandma wanted a picture with her Grandsons and Great Grandchildren, it didn't go well, HA!

But I did get a good one with her and Ethan

After dessert it was time to head home. It had been a long day and we were all pretty exhausted. It was such a wonderfully fun day. It was Ethan's last first holiday. I hope all of you had a great Easter with your families too!

Easter Weekend Recap - Part 1

I took hundreds of pictures this weekend so I'm going to split our weekend recap into 2 posts. Our weekend started on Friday since both Michael and I didn't work. It was so nice to have a fun family day. Michael and I woke up but Ethan was still sleeping so I made us French Toast for breakfast. After breakfast Michael and I got everything set up to decorate Easter eggs. Finally little man woke up so we fed him some breakfast and then got started decorating eggs!

This is what happens when Daddy feeds me yogurt!

Hmmm...what am I supposed to do with this?

This was about as much decorating Ethan did!

I think I'll just eat some yogurt melts

After Ethan was done with his breakfast, Michael and I got to work on our egg decorating! We used food coloring this year for color instead of the tablet kits, this way we could make what ever colors we wanted. We did a few test eggs to see where the color was and adjusted accordingly.

We also tried a few new decorating techniques that I had found a few weeks ago. We tried using rubber bands, stickers and markers this year. Everything worked great! I tried the rubber band technique and it worked well.

I think my favorite was the sticker technique. I made some cute heart sticker eggs that came out really cute. 

Michael decorated eggs with egg wraps, dye, markers and even mustaches!

Ethan started getting antsy so we let him down to crawl around while we finished decorating. He was all over the place!

Overall, our eggs came out great! It was fun to try some new things. Next year Ethan should be more interested in decorating eggs too!

After we were done decorating eggs it was time for Ethan's nap. When we woke up we decided we had to get outside because it was so nice out. It was almost 60 degrees! It's been so cold lately so we couldn't wait to get out. We headed to downtown Wheaton to have a picnic and walk around. We grabbed sandwiches at our favorite place, Shane's deli, and then went and sat at some picnic tables in a close by park. I got Ethan his first grilled cheese sandwich and he loved it; he ate the whole thing except for the crust! It was just so nice to be outside. After lunch we just walked around downtown to get some exercise and enjoy the sunshine and warm weather!

After our walk, we stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner and headed home. Then it was nap time for everyone! After our naps I worked on getting our deck all set up for Summer.

I got all of our furniture arranged after being undercover for the past 5 months. It's so nice to have our deck back in business, we love sitting out there. For dinner we had to grill so Michael grilled us some yummy burgers. The rest of the night we just relaxed and watched the Hawks game, which ended up being anything but relaxing! 

On Saturday I had plans to do some Easter baking and crafts. I traced Ethan's hands and made a cute Easter chick craft! I made one for us and one for each set of grandparents.

I also worked on some Easter baking. I made chocolate cupcakes and some cute marshmallow flowers to decorate them with. I wasn't going to make my frosting until Easter morning so it was fresh.  

The rest of Saturday we had lots of play time with Ethan and I also did his 11 month photo shoot, which came out really cute! I made some yummy egg salad for lunch from our pretty decorated eggs. 

For dinner we went to our favorite pizza place Georgio's and it was delicious as always. We came home, relaxed, and got some play time in before Ethan had to go bed. After he went to bed I got Ethan's Easter basket all set up and ready to go for morning. We couldn't wait to see him open everything up!

Part 2: Easter Day coming tomorrow!