Easter 2013

This Sunday was Meo's second Easter (19 months old) and our first Easter living in our new house. I spent the eve of Easter busily making homemade dyes for our Easter Eggs, making apple crisp for dessert, preparing Meo's Easter basket, and hiding plastic eggs filled with little farm toys in easy-to-spot locations around the house. I made the dyes from an assortment of foods: blueberries, cranberries/raspberries, kale/peas/green tea, and orange peels/turmeric all mixed with a few cups of water and a splash of vinegar. I thought they turned out nicely.

Meo's Easter basket

"Is this for me""

Homemade apple crisp

Eggs being dyed

Naturally dyed Easter eggs

In the morning, Meo woke up nice and early. As he slid off the bed, the Easter basket caught his eye (well, the crackers I keep beside our bed did first, but shortly after he did notice it). First he ripped out Wembly, a Fraggle and best friend to Meo's favorite Fraggle, Gobo. He gave him a quick look over, said "Gobo?" in a puzzled tone, then tossed him to the side to get to his book. Once he was able to extract his new train book, he promptly brought it over to me to have it read to him. Since Daddy wakes up much too slowly and completely missed Meo opening his Easter basket, I told Meo to give the book to Daddy, and they had a lovely time reading about trains together.

Next, after a diaper change, we brought the Easter basket downstairs and directed Meo to search for his Easter eggs. We weren't sure how this would go. First of all, we decided to do it inside, because Meo is easily distracted outside and would be more interested in playing in the snow or picking up leaves to give us than looking for eggs. Second, we were slightly concerned he would find one egg then become preoccupied with what was inside and not care to look for the rest. But to our astonishment, Meo got really into the egg hunt! He got really excited every time he spotted one, would run over to it, shake the egg, then plop it in his basket. There were a couple that were tricky to find, but after a little nudging in the right direction, he was able to find them all and had a blast.

Theta had been batting this pick egg around when Meo entered the room

Completely oblivious to the pink egg next to him

Still oblivious

Oh!!

"Is it breakfast time yet""

Then we sat down at his little table and opened up his eggs together. We didn't want to give him candy as he is one year old, and also we don't really eat candy in our house (well at least Meo and I don't), so instead I stuffed them with little farm figurines. He is really into making farm animals sounds right now and I thought he would love them. I was right! He adored them and made all the little sounds as he handled them. He has been playing with them everyday since, walking around "mooing" and "baaing" and enjoys "putting them away" in his rain boots and in my boots when he is done with them.

Bwacking like a chicken

By this time, Meo and I were both starving (we both get very hungry and very cranky if we don't eat shortly after waking up). So we put our lovely Easter breakfast together: our naturally dyed hard boiled eggs, organic strawberries, watermelon, grapes, cinnamon raisin toast, and french pressed coffee. It was delicious. And while we were eating, we were visited by many special guests at the feeders outside on our deck, including downy woodpeckers, chickadees and nuthatches.

Meo's Easter breakfast

Downy woodpecker

Checking out mama with binoculars; preparing for birdwatching.

After a leisurely breakfast and birdwatching, Meo got very sleepy so we prepared to go over to my parents house so that Meo could nap in the car. He had a very good nap, and so did I.

Napping with Gobo

At Memere and Pepere's we had fun visiting with his "old Pepere", Aunt Sam, Uncle Brian, and eventually cousin Bryce. Memere and Pepere gave him a couple of thoughtful presents: his first baseball bat and ball and a set of gardening tools to help mommy in the garden later this spring.

Megan, Brian and "old" Pepere

New baseball bat!

An excited "Ooooo!"

New gardening tools

Dinner was delicious. The main course was ham, but us vegetarians enjoyed the mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, pineapples, warm rolls, and yummy spinach salad. Meo especially enjoyed the rolls, and as you can see in one of the following photos, tried to snatch my roll when I got up for a moment.

Happy boy

Snatcher!

To my right

To my left

Rocray family Easter

"But I want mom!"

Pepere insisted on giving Meo a chocolate bunny; I insisted it be one of the small ones.

This mama really needed a walk after dinner, so we rallied up Daddy, Memere, Auntie Sam and Harley to go for a nice long walk on a beautiful day. About a half mile into our walk, Meo did not want to have anything to do with being on Daddy's back in the carrier anymore so we set him free. That's when Auntie Sam and Memere decided to walk on home, while Robbie and I continued at Meo pace and got home approximately a half hour later. Meo was very interested in picking up sticks and rocks, stomping in puddles, kicking at clumps of snow, and trying to run into ditches (while laughing as daddy chased after him). It was a long way home, but Meo had so much fun, it didn't matter that it took us so much longer.

After we got back, Bryce arrived. Brian and my parents gave Bryce his Easter presents, and Meo enjoyed sitting on Bryce's new Mickey Mouse chair while we watched.

The next part of the day was probably my favorite part of the day. Brian his a dozen Easter Eggs outside for the boys to find. I don't think I have ever seen anything cuter than these two little toddler boys trotting beside each other looking for eggs. Bryce was very focused on egg hunting, while as predicted, Meo was distracted by things like snow and climbing dirt piles. However, Meo did manage to find a couple eggs with encouragement from Pepere, and they both had so much fun.

Searching for the first egg

Meo didn't see it and gave up

But Bryce spotted it!

captured

Happy Bryce

Meo got one!

And another!

Stumble

snow stomping

Meo is not really sure about this situation

Bryce got a Spongebob kite in his Easter basket, so Brian and Bryce needed to test it out. It worked great, and Bryce was even able to fly it all by himself! They both had so much fun flying the kite together, it was impossible not to smile at the pair. Meo liked watching the kite too.

Bryce flying his kite all by himself

Happiness

Gazing up at the kite

Captured

Siblings

Once inside, the boys enjoyed opening up the eggs. Inside there was some quarters for their piggy banks and some little fruit snacks. Both the boys loved munching on the fruit snacks and enjoyed watching Robbie make the quarters spin across the table top.

Finally, it was time for dessert! We warmed up the apple crisp in the oven, and Robbie made some homemade whipped cream. I was starving by the time it was all ready and enjoyed two plates full. Meo enjoyed the whip cream, and fussed for mine.

Whipped cream heaven

To end our visit, we all hung out in the living room while Bryce and Meo played together. Mostly Bryce watched Meo do acrobatics all over his chair and eventually decided to join in on the fun. They are so goofy.

Mr. Meo then got very tired, so we decided to go home. Our little guy had a very full day, and was coming down with a cold so he was completely wiped out.

Happy sleeper after a fun day

When we got home, I had to wake Meo up to bring him inside. He was so tired we decided to skip bath time and go right to bed. Meo liked this idea, but unfortunately also wanted me to go to bed with him. I nursed him on both sides then lay with him. He would open his eyes to peek at me and would have a huge smile whenever he saw me. I tried sneaking further away, and each time he would get up and crawl over to either lay beside me in my new spot, or to actually crawl on top of me to pin me down. Eventually I called in Robbie to take over, which usually works fantastically as Robbie can almost always get him to bed in 5 minutes after all the mommy and Meo shenanigans. Not this time though. Meo really, really, REALLY wanted mommy, and after saying my name over and over started screaming and crying to the point that he was shaking and hyperventilating. No amount of sweet Daddy singing and being walked around in loving arms was helping this boy. I came into a room with a very upset boy quivering in-between little heavy "sob breaths". I knew then that for whatever reason he needed to be close to me that night. So on Easter Sunday, Mommy and Meo went to be at 9:00 pm. Meo was very, very happy about this (as soon as I picked him up he smiled and pointed at the humidifier and CD player indicating that those were the things that needed to be turned off before bed in Mama's room). Turns out, I was pretty darn tired too and fell asleep almost right away, snuggled up with my sweet little boy. We had a very happy Easter!