Parker's Easter party/hunt

Parker had his Easter egg hunt/party on April 8th at his school, Footprints Preschool. It was a beautiful day out and perfect for a Easter egg hunt. I brought Grandma Oldham with me to watch Parker collect his eggs. Each kid in the class were to collect 12 eggs. After the hunt I managed to get a picture of Parker with the Easter bunny. Last year Parker wanted nothing to do with the Easter bunny, wouldn't even get close to the bunny. After the Easter egg hunt I went home and then I came back at 1pm to have a little party for the kids in the classroom. Since I am the room mom for the class, its part of my responsibility to plan parities and activities in the classroom. I had each child make a bunny ear hat for them to wear. I had the color the ears and then I stapled them to piece of construction paper that wrapped around their head. The kids had fun coloring the ears and were 'hopping' all over the classroom. I captured a cute picture of the class with their bunny ears on. After that I brought some sugar cookies for each child. The kids all had fun and I'm sure all the parents loved me for getting their child all sugared up....hehehe!

Fort Worth Stockyards/Train Ride

On Friday April 10th, Leland' parents, myself and the boys took a train ride from Grapevine TX to Fort Worth TX. The train ride left at 1pm and we got to the Fort Worth Stockyards around 2:15pm. It was a very enjoyable and relaxing train ride. The boys loved looking out the window and seeing different things. We went over a couple lakes and Parker could see the turtles in the lake and thought that was neat. Shortly after the train took off Nathan fell asleep on my lap. The train ride happened to take place during his normal nap time, so it was ok for him to get some sleep.

We got to the Stockyards in Fort Worth and met Leland there since he works in Fort Worth now. Parker spotted the mechanical bull and wanted to ride it, so we went over to watch him. The guy that was running the mechanical bull said he would go very slow so he wouldn't fall off. After the first few minutes Parker said, " Faster mom, I want to go faster!" So the guy turned up the speed. He had the biggest smile on his face, it was absolutely priceless! He was so proud of himself that he didn't fall off and he wanted to ride it again, but at $5 a pop, we had to pass and move on to something else. We began walking down the streets looking at all the little shops and came across a cowboy with a longhorn. Parker wanted to sit on the longhorn, so we waited in line for his turn to sit on the longhorn. The guy told him to say, "Texas" while he was sitting on the longhorn. I thought for sure sitting up that high would have scared him, but nope, he was petting him and everything. Now if we could just get Parker to like dogs, then we could be set:) We went to a candy store and got some taffy and stopped at a restaurant to have a drink and snack.

I love the picture of Parker on the train tracks. He was fun watching him try to balance on the tracks with out falling over. We only had about 2 hours to spend at the Stockyards before it was time to get back on the train to head back to Grapevine. Leland's mom decided to stay back with Leland and drive back with him, so it was me, grandpa, and the boys on the train ride back. The boys were so wild on the way back, it was hard to keep their arms and head inside the train. After we made it back to Grapevine we all went out to eat at Golden Coral.

Bunny cake

I decided to do something special for the dessert after our meal for Easter. I figured the boys would have fun decorating the bunny cake. I found the idea on kraftfoods.com. It was simple to make. I used one tub of cool whip and got jelly beans for the eyes and nose, licorice pull and peel for the whiskers, and different colored licorice for the bow tie.

Nathan immediately stuck his finger in the cool whip and licked his finger right away, but he soon realized what we were doing and he had fun decorating. Parker was really into decorating the cake. He wanted to put a carrot in the bunny's mouth and when he did that it actually looked like a pipe in the bunny's mouth. Leland and I couldn't stop laughing when Parker put the piece of licorice in the bunny mouth.

Easter '09

We were very fortunate to have Leland's parents come down for Easter and stay for a week. We stayed busy every day and it helped that the weather was beautiful while they were here too. We have been working on landscaping in front of the house, so we made a trip down to the farmers market in downtown Dallas to pick up some flats of flowers and fresh produce. There is nothing like fresh tomatoes and watermelon, yummy!

Corinth has a Easter egg hunt each each, but we couldn't make it to the one this year because Parker had a soccer game at the same time as the Easter egg hunt, so we decided to have one at the house. Leland's mom and I filled the eggs while the boys were taking a nap and then hid them around the house. We did the hunt on Saturday before Easter because we were expecting rain for Easter Sunday. We also included a BIG yellow egg that was the golden egg that had a big prize in it for Parker. Parker has been asking for a pair of goggles that he can wear in the pool this summer, so I decided to go out and get him a pair. They fit perfectly in the yellow egg.

Nathan had a blast looking for the eggs and putting them into his bag( he didn't have a Easter basket, so he used a bag I had laying around from bath and body works, I know cheesy right?) Grandma and Grandpa got each of the boys their own Easter basket, but they didn't open them until Easter Sunday.

We went to church Easter morning. I was a little worried how the boys would be since church was so packed and it was at 11:30am which is lunch time, but Nathan fell asleep half way through the mass and Parker was very well behaved. We captured a nice family picture before we went to church. We had a nice Easter dinner after church of a spiral ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, raisin bran muffins, jello, devil eggs, and a very special rabbit cake we made. I will include separate pictures in the next blog.