Easter 2018
Easter this year was much different that ones before. Melody was able to walk this Easter, and she was much more interested in hunting eggs. We spent Easter local instead of traveling like we usually do. While we missed our out of town family, it was nice to spend Easter with our local family and friends. And traveling on holidays can be really stressful too. Unfortunately our dishwasher sprung a leak the week before, so that did create some drama Easter weekend. However it was a blessing we were in town to handle it. Aside from the housing woes, we had a very fun and eventful Easter weekend. Check it all out below:
Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt
Because we tend to travel most holidays, we rarely get to participate in our neighborhood holiday events. We were very excited to hear that we would be in town while they were doing the Easter egg hunt. This year our HOA did not sponsor it, but a local church did. It was a really thoughtful thing they did for our neighborhood. Melody loved it, and it was a great start to the Easter weekend festivities.
The hunt was held at our neighborhood clubhouse, so we decided to walk. Melody loved this!
Below is a glimpse of all of the eggs on the 0-4 year old side. This is literally just a GLIMPSE, and it is just ONE side. The other side was full of eggs for the 5+ kids.
Before the hunt officially began, we held Melody to keep her from running to grab eggs, ha! So this gave us the opportunity to snap a few pictures with Melody.
One of the church leaders did a countdown, and all the kids were off! Melody filled up a basket plus a bag. There were SO MANY eggs! Even when we finished there were plenty of eggs still left to be found. At least that was the case on the 0-4 side. I heard that the 5+ side had all their eggs picked up within a minute! Melody did so good and really loved it! It was funny to see the moment she realized that the eggs were filled. From that point forward, she shook every egg she picked up. She also started to grab two at a time to be more efficient. She was pretty proud of herself!
After we finished hunting eggs, we went inside of our clubhouse. The church had three tables setup with different crafts, and they also had a table with snacks. Melody enjoyed a cookie of course!
After snacks, we couldn't leave without a stop at the playground. Melody loves it. It is still a little big for her though. She is getting curious about the open areas that have the poles or other climbing things. So I have to watch her to keep her from falling off of those. And the slides are a little tall, so I have to help her down at the end. So it is definitely a tag team effort. Then with tears we finally headed back home.
Once home, we went through all of her eggs. A lot of the candy and toys were too old for her, or better yet, too much of a choking hazard. Therefore a lot she didn't get to keep.
Family Easter Gathering
Later Saturday afternoon, we went to my parent's house and had an Easter gathering with my mom's side of the family. While the eggs were finding their hiding place, the kids played inside for a bit.
Then they all headed outside to find them! Melody picked up a bucket full, but eventually lost interest and wanted to just play in the gravel, ha! Don't worry, the other kids found them instead.
After the hunt it was time for dinner. We had BBQ, hot dogs, ands lots of sides! Melody primarily ate apples and peanut butter!
After dinner, the kids continued to play but outside this time. It is so much fun seeing all the young kids playing together. I wished we all could get together more often for sure!
Easter Sunday
On Sunday, the devil was definitely fighting us. Saturday night, Melody woke up and cried to the point she ended up in bed with us. We all overslept and woke up with only 30-40 minutes to all get ready and eat breakfast before needing to leave for church. Luckily, we made it just in time! Of course we had to sit in the very back row, but I was happy we made it before service started!
Because we were running behind, we didn't get any pictures before church, but I managed to sneak this picture of Melody afterwards on our way to our car.
Since it was just the three of us, we decided to have lunch somewhere out and nice. With all of the house issues and some travel we were planning for, it was going to be much easier this way too! We decided to eat lunch at Texas de Brazil. We were there about 10-15 minutes before they opened, so we let Melody run around a bit and took some pictures too.
Our visit to Texas de Brazil this morning was probably our best visit yet. Granted it wasn't crowded at all, but Melody did super well and the food was spectacular. Our server was also great. On our past visits, the servers are hit or miss. Either they are bad the entire time, or they start out great and end up bad. The only complaint I had about ours was it did take awhile to get our check. But to her defense, she was given a table of 8 just as we were finishing up. The food was also top notch. I prefer my meat to be well done or at least medium well. This is also hit or miss. But this visit they were sure to give me my meat just as I liked it, and it was all great! And with the help of Mickey and our iPad, she did really good. She did get fussy the last 10 minutes or so, but we were there over an hour! Oh and we had complimentary sodas and desserts!
Because of our rushed morning, Melody didn't get to hunt eggs before church like Brad had hoped. That was a tradition that his family did growing up, so he wanted to continue it. They also hunted eggs indoors. So we hid them on Saturday night, and when she woke up from her nap after lunch, she hunted them. We had to hurry because SERVPRO was there drying all of our floors.
I didn't want to ruin her $70 Well Dressed Wolf Easter dress, so she changed into play clothes and finally played with all of her goodies from her Easter basket as well as tore into all the candy in the Easter eggs!
Overall we had a wonderful Easter weekend. Unfortunately we couldn't see ALL of our family, but that is just life as an adult I suppose. I hope every else also had a blessed and Happy Easter!
