Sunday morning I sat down to paint my toes while the kids were watching a movie. Lila walked over and said “Me paint toes.” I got excited because last time I tried to paint her toenails it ended in only five toes painted hot pink. But this time around she seemed more into it so I jumped up to grab a shade of pink. As I headed for the stairs, Quinn ran over and checked out my toes. After hearing Lila ask for her toes to painted, he didn’t want to be left out. He asked me if I could paint his toes red, like Superman. I wasn’t about to tell my boy that only girls get their toes painted. So I said absolutely but I didn’t have red so would silver do?
It did. And then my painted toenails boy went out and kicked butt on the soccer field. I think the silver gave him extra speed!
Our Easter is always pretty low key. We don’t do Easter outfits or bonnets or huge baskets. But we always do family time, egg hunts, and beer hunts. What…beer hunts aren’t standard Easter events?
Like the past few years, we took the kids to the same egg hunt that my brother and I went to when we were little. I like this particular egg hunt because it’s not crazy crowded and it’s one of the few egg hunts left that actually use real hard boiled eggs instead of plastic eggs. Call me old fashioned, but I much prefer real over plastic. (Yes, I’m still talking about Easter eggs!) The kids were in two different age groups this year- Lila was in the 3 and under group, and Quinn graduated to the 4-6 year old group. Both did awesome and I have been eating a lot of egg salad for lunch this week.
Checking out their eggs. Quinn said the glasses helped him see the eggs better but I think he wore them so he could discretely scope out the competition. He’s competitive like that.
After the egg hunt we gathered at my parents house for dinner and our annual beer hunt. My grandfather started this many years ago for me and my brother and we have been continuing the tradition. I stepped it up a notch this year and made the beer look a little festive and added some “golden eggs” in the form of small bottles of Prosecco wrapped in golden yellow fabric. We keep our beer hunts classy!
Ryan was the winner. This guy can smell a beer from miles away.
Beer hunt action:
I was the hider of the beers and impressed myself with the hiding spots.
the eggs beers:
Grammy was the guardian of the bottles that were found:
Some of the spectators:
The weather was beautiful (albeit slightly windy) and the company was the best.
After a delicious meal, it was bathtime for Carter.
Poor guy didn’t get a second of privacy…he had a very attentive audience the whole time!
We came home early in the afternoon on Sunday with two children who were overtired and oversugared, but the fun of Saturday made it worth it!
We dyed Easter eggs on Friday afternoon because that’s what you do at Easter time. But dying eggs with small children is different. It’s more of a cross your fingers, color the eggs as quickly as possible, and get rid of the cups of egg dye as soon as you can before anyone spills anything. I think we dyed 36 eggs in less than ten minutes. But we didn’t spill anything, so I consider the activity a success!
Looking for the “lellow” color…
Mr. Serious
Our success was in part due to the four sets of adult hands on deck vs. the two sets of children hands.
Another key component to our success can be seen in the background of the above picture.
And so it’s begun…the diva princess stage. I knew it was coming. It was confirmed during this incident at Quinn’s soccer practice the other night:
A tantrum in the middle of the soccer field. As far as tantrums go, these are decent ones- after the initial slow motion fall to the ground while crying, the rest of the tantrum is pretty quiet. She just lays there, waiting for attention. I usually just ignore her (and take pictures!) and she eventually gets up. But it’s a tantrum, nonetheless.
Another exhibit of the diva princess in action:
This was on the way to school the other morning. She was very picky about her clothing choice that morning and finally settled on a skirt because she could “Dance!” in it. Then she had to fully accessorize before leaving the house- oversized sunglasses, hat, and baby doll. All necessary accessories when you are a diva princess!
Quinn had his first soccer game of the season today. And I’m using the term “game” pretty loosely. The program he is in is meant to teach the 50 four and five year olds the very basics of the game- which way to run, no picking the ball up, etc. I love watching this age play soccer. Their shinguards come up to their knees and their soccer shorts come down to their calves. Quinn was no exception.
Those shorts were cinched as tight as they could go and rolled 3 times and they still looked like that. It was the cutest thing ever.
Quinn LOVED every minute of the game. And he did awesome- he didn’t use his hands, he helped a teammate up when he fell, he passed the ball a few times, and he ran the right way (90% of the time). He had a great goal where he dribbled past four defenders and made a perfect shot into the net. The best part of it was how proud he looked after the goal.
Most of the game looked like this:
Just a swarm of kids from both teams trying to kick the ball. (Quinn is number 22.)
There was some actual soccer action:
But the game was pretty long- about 50 minutes with halftime- so Quinn’s attention span rapidly depleted after about 30 minutes. He started doing cartwheels and somersaults and who knows what else while the ball was out of play.
Along with the oversize uniforms, kids doing cartwheels while the game is in session is my other favorite part of four year olds playing soccer. I was thoroughly enjoying Quinn’s gymnastics display, as were several other parents. He didn’t think anything of it. When I asked him why he was doing cartwheels during the game, he said he was just waiting for the ball. No biggie…I’ll just do the crab walk followed by a somersault while waiting for the corner kick…it’s what all the soccer players do.
Here he is in action. You can hear me telling other parents that he’s my son because they were commenting on his skillz. I don’t know if you can hear in these videos, but there were some hardcore parents there. A parent near me was yelling at her daughter to kick the ball so loudly and aggressively that her daughter started to cry. I wanted to ask the mother if she realized they weren’t even keeping score but kept my mouth shut and continued to watch my son do cartwheels on the field.
And here he is actually playing:
It was honestly so fun to watch him play, crazy antics and all. I was a proud mama!
I would be remiss if I didn’t show you photos of the other soccer players- Max and Lila.
Max’s sister Kendall was playing so the two little ones hung out during the game. Lila loves Max so whenever she gets to see him, she is happy. It’s looking like the feeling is mutual.
Quinn had such fun playing that he cried when the game was over. We’ll pretend it was due to his passion for the game, not his hunger and overtiredness. Overall, I’d say the first game was a success!
Lila had her ironically named “well” child check up yesterday. And she is well, other than her ear infection/ cold combo and the fever that keeps coming back. Hopefully the antibiotics she has started will wipe this infection out, because she has had periods of feeling really miserable. And I have huge smears of snot on my shirt. So we’re both ready for this to end.
The “well” child part of the appointment went well. The great news is that she got bumped up on the growth chart and is now in the 8th percentile for weight and somewhere around the 25th for height. Yay Lila! Must have been all that birthday cake icing over the weekend. No other real news from her check up. She missed out on the shot she was due for because she was sick so it was a pretty pleasant visit for her as well. As soon as the doctor stopped blowing bubbles for her and started talking to me, Lila decided she was done and banged on the exam room door while signing and saying “Done. Done. Go. DONE.” Lila is many wonderful things, but a patient patient is not one of them.
We celebrated Lila’s birthday all weekend, as it should be when you are two. On Saturday we had my parents, my brother and his fam, my grandmother and my aunt over for lunch. The bad news was that it was cold and rainy. The good news for Lila was that her favorite people were in the house and she couldn’t contain her excitement. Especially when it comes to cousin Carter. Lila thinks he is awesomesauce. (And he is.)
The highlight of her day might have been when she helped feed Carter his bottle.
Maybe only second to when we all sang to her and her other favorite man, Quinn, helped her blow out her candles.
She loved her “Melmo” cake although she didn’t eat any of the actual cake- she just licked every speck of icing off with her finger. I guess when you are two that’s acceptable. I kind of wish it was acceptable when you are 31!
Quinn was very sweet and excited for his baby sister’s birthday. He went to the store to get balloons and the cake and kept telling me how excited he was that Lila was turning two. He was a little aggressive in helping her with the present opening, but overall was generally very sweet.
Lila got her very own plasma car, and can now join the neighborhood ice cream night plasma car gang. It’s a ferocious group of toddlers and preschoolers.
The cutest party guest:
I took about 20 pictures of the cousins together, and these were the best I got…
The birthday girl finished off the party with a pickle and a juice box.
We were planning on going to a local zoo on her actual birthday but the weather didn’t cooperate, so we ended up at Chocolate World. The kids love the ride and the free chocolate. (Who doesn’t love free chocolate?) We also finally checked out the 3D movie. Both kids looked awesome in their glasses.
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We had lunch at Houlihans where Lila dined on lemons. Seriously, she didn’t touch her macaroni but ate two lemons.
We then spent the afternoon taking an epic family nap and playing with some birthday presents.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, which they did around 7:00 in the evening when I realized Lila was running a 102+ temperature. She’s been out of school for the past two days and we’re hitting up the doctor tomorrow morning to get this figured out. I’m suspecting the usual culprit- ear infection- but we’ll see. Other than the fever, we had a very happy second birthday celebration.
As I’ve mentioned a few hundred times before, it’s a battle to get Quinn to fall asleep. But when he finally goes to sleep, he’s out. And it’s impossible to wake him up. Which explains why we weren’t surprised to find him sleeping like this.
He didn’t flinch when we moved him to a normal sleeping position. I wish I could sleep that deeply.
