Easter Celebrations

| April 20, 2014

Happy Easter! We had a great Easter this year and I hope these pictures show it. We had a lot of fun leading up to Easter before the day even got here. Sam was so excited about the Easter Bunny and wondering where her basket would be hidden. We decorated, we visited the Easter Bunny, and this year was our first year we decided to decorate Easter eggs with Sam.

Not surprisingly, she loved it! Coloring eggs is right up her alley. We just knew before this year it would have been such a mess. She loved the whole process of dipping the eggs and waiting for the color to come out. For her first time we went “old school” and just used standard dye in vinegar, nothing fancy.

DSC_2563

She did a great job dipping the eggs and even mixing them in a few colors to see what would come out.

DSC_2568

DSC_2569

You can see how proud she was of her efforts! She picked out which ones were for Grandmom, Poppy, and Pop Pop right away and kept checking the refrigerator to make sure we didn’t eat them!

DSC_2573

On Easter morning, she was up bright and early. She was in our bed (naturally) and I felt her pop up in the morning. The first words out of her mouth were, “Happy Easter, Mommy!” to be quickly followed by, “I wonder where the Easter Bunny hid my basket?” I told her we’d go look in a minute, but before I could even remotely wake up, she was out of bed opening closets and looking everywhere. She was pretty disappointed it wasn’t in any of our closets (she was sure EB would hide it in hers) or in any of his usual places. Finally, I had to help her out and let her know there was something in our tub that didn’t quite belong!

DSC_2583

I love this expression – it perfectly captures what she kept saying over and over all day – why would the Easter Bunny hide her basket in the tub, that’s so silly!

DSC_2588

Here’s a pic of her basket and its goodies, before it got completely torn apart. Sam got a Max and Ruby, some little bunnies, a stuffed duck (which was easily her favorite thing), some puzzles and other little toys, and of course, candy!

DSC_2581

Sam loves checking out her goodies, one by one, very carefully, so she can inspect each and every thing.

DSC_2592

And then, of course, she has to hurl all the grass into the air making a gigantic mess…

DSC_2598

But she is a cute mess. 🙂

DSC_2604

She got these cute little bunny ear barrettes and a pom pom tail in her basket too (you can’t see the tail, but she looks sweet in the whole outfit).

DSC_2605

Later that morning, Pop Pop came by with another basket of goodies for Sam. The candy never ends! Yay!

DSC_2614

We had dinner with my parents that night and took time to take a few family portraits. We all clean up pretty nicely, if I do say so myself!

DSC_2621-2

DSC_2635

DSC_2642

DSC_2646

DSC_2651

It was a great day, just like always. The weather cooperated, and we spent time with family, gorged on chocolate, and relaxed. If only every day could be so nice! Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

| April 19, 2014

Happy Easter everyone! Later, there will be plenty of pictures of Sam enjoying her basket and doing all sorts of fun Easter things, but for now, enjoy the photos of our beautiful girl in her Easter finery!

Sam held tight to this little chick the whole time.  It was hard to get a photo of her without it.

DSC_1913

Here’s her whole outfit, from head to toe!

DSC_1973

Our favorite place to take pictures is outside, especially when the sun hits her gorgeous hair, like it is here.

DSC_2487-2

I had been wanting a new picture of me and my girl, and I got a few beauties!

DSC_2080

Me and my best girl – I hope she is this enamored with me forever.

DSC_2024

DSC_2021

And we also got some fabulous pictures of Samantha with her favorite guy!

DSC_2432-2

DSC_2415

Of course, they had to take time out to be silly. That’s Sam and her dad, all right…

DSC_2401

Krista brought Maddox over one day to take some pictures of the kids together. Sam, little fashionista that she is, couldn’t decide between two dresses this year, so we also bought this one. I consider it her backup Easter dress. 🙂 I love those little smiles.

DSC_0332-2

DSC_0308

DSC_2299

Maddox is tough to take pictures of sometimes because he never wants to smile at you when you want him to, which is crazy since he is giggling all the time. A few silly things behind Mark’s back though, and he’s all smiles!

DSC_0187

DSC_0156-2

DSC_0094

Since it was a family photo day, Rich posed for a few with his grandkids.

DSC_0234

DSC_0357-2

Just a few more, of our beautiful girl. Happy Easter!

DSC_0241

DSC_0239-2

Hi, Easter Bunny!

| March 29, 2014

Yesterday Sam went to visit the Easter Bunny. He doesn’t quite rank as high as Santa in her book, but he comes close. The other day, Sam and my mom were at Springfield Mall and she saw his whole set up ready for picture taking, but the Easter Bunny wasn’t there yet and wouldn’t be until the following weekend. Last night, we decided to go to King of Prussia Mall after picking her up at school and, lo and behold, he was at the Court at King of Prussia.  Sam was so excited! She peered down at him through the railing and couldn’t get down that escalator fast enough. She seems to think that visiting the Easter Bunny is like seeing Santa, but we keep telling her you don’t get to tell the Easter Bunny what you want in your basket! She likes seeing the Easter Bunny, but she doesn’t understand why he doesn’t talk. I told that her bunnies don’t talk, right? So the Easter Bunny doesn’t talk either. I think this picture is so cute. She looks so happy to be there.

EasterBunny2014

Every year the Easter Bunny hides her basket so she has to look for it on Easter morning. She has been wondering and wondering where it will be this year for weeks. I liked Easter when I was a kid, but I think Sam has me beat. She is acting like it will be Christmas morning!

Family Portrait Time!

| April 2, 2013

On Easter, we have been having dinner out with my parents, so it is always a great opportunity to take some family pictures with Grandmom and Poppy.

Poppy especially wanted a new picture with his adorable granddaughter since the last one we took of just the two of them was a years or so ago, and she changes so fast. Sam loves her Poppy!

Sam and her Grandmom. What Sammy would do without her, I don’t know.

I love having portraits of the “girls”. I still often look at one taken of me, my mom, and my grandmom a year or so before she died and I am so happy I have it. Seeing the three generations is always incredible to see, especially when you can find the resemblances.

It wasn’t quite April yet, but Sam is ready for April showers with her Grover umbrella!

Sweets for my sweet

| April 2, 2013

Sam was so excited for Easter this year.  She couldn’t wait to get her Easter Basket. She had very definite ideas about what the Easter Bunny was going to put in there. On Easter morning, I was in her bed with her and she woke me up and told me she thought that the Easter Bunny had come and left her basket. I told her that she had to wait for Daddy to get up and she tried really hard to be patient and play in her room. Finally, she couldn’t wait anymore so I told her to go wake up Mark. She did, but couldn’t wait for us to go downstairs. We heard her cute little voice say, “I think the Easter Bunny didn’t come…” because her basket was hidden. Each Easter, Sam has to go hunting for her Easter basket because that sneaky Bunny hides it in a new place every year. We assured her that he did leave her a basket, she just had to look around.

Nope, not in the living room.

Maybe behind the chair. That’s where it was last year….nope.

In the closet in Zephyr’s room (also commonly called, The Guest Room)? Nope!

In Mommy and Daddy’s closet? Yes!

Hooray!  He didn’t forget her after all.

The Easter Bunny always brings Sam some toys along with her candy, but this year Sam was much more interested in the chocolate bunnies.

We have a lot of plastic eggs laying around at Easter time and Sam was sure the Bunny would take some and fill them up for her.  He did!

Zephyr wasn’t sure what all the fuss was about. She thought, where’s my Easter basket full of catnip?

One of the toys Sam got was a wind up egg with feet. She was concerned for some reason that it was going to get her chocolate eggs so she hid them in her hands.

He plopped over when bumping into her and that was for some reason very funny.

Sam had a great Easter. She has been gorging herself on chocolate for days and playing with her toys. Her basket had her wind up egg, some stickers, an egg with a tiny puzzle inside, a pink rubber duck, and a Hello Kitty doll. She has been on a sugar rush from all her “sweets” as she has been calling them and I’m sure until all the candy is gone, she will be a bigger ball of energy that usual. Easter isn’t quite Christmas, but it sure is a lot of fun with a little girl running around, that’s for sure.