Easter 2014 and the TOOTH

Happy Easter, everyone! We don't make a big deal out of it at our house, but the kids have picked up some clues about the holiday from friends at school. I had never mentioned the Easter Bunny (the boys were so confused when we were at the mall last week and EB was in "Santa's house" - Ryan and Jack could not fathom why anyone would want to go talk to the big bunny...) so when Jack saw the Easter baskets on the kitchen table, he ran back into my room and said, "MOM! You got us Easter baskets!"

Ryan corrected him, saying the Easter Bunny had brought them. I didn't correct either one, until Ryan then said that the Easter Bunny had also fixed our broken microwave. I said I didn't think he was that mechanically-inclined and showed them that our micro is indeed still inoperable. (We don't use it very often and are not in a huge hurry to replace it as it's a vent-hood version - thus kind of pain to work on)..

 

The boys each got three eggs full of (all-natural) jelly beans, two hollow chocolate eggs, a packet of Annie's bunny fruit chews, an applesauce squeezie pack, a musical card, a pinweel, a packet of mini decorative tape, and a Splat the Cat book.

I think Jack was most excited about the green shredded paper "grass" as he managed to spread it from one end of the house to the other.

We then got dolled up and headed down to meet Aunt Sarah at her church, The Sanctuary Downtown. It is a beautiful old church with incredible woodwork, gilt paint and stained glass, but the service is a little too contemporary for my tastes (I've never sung Christ the Lord is Risen Today accompanied by a rock band before). The boys stayed through the sermon and were very well-behaved (despite all the jelly beans).

On the drive home a ladybug flew "right into [Jack's] ear!" and then perched on his finger for a bit. A beautiful harbinger of spring and warmer weather!

Then it was time to get ready for Easter dinner. We originally weren't going to do anything special but my friend Jena suggested we get together and I can't turn down an opportunity to bust out the silver!

Raymond, Kristine and Eli joined us too, so we lined the boys up at the kitchen table. As we were getting everyone washed up and situated, Ryan took a big bite of ham and FINALLY his loose tooth popped out!

Everyone was so excited - he's the first one in our group of friends and in his class to lose a tooth, so he was quite the center of attention.

Finally the adults were able to sit down to enjoy the meal (the kids finished in record time and headed back out to the playset). We had spinach salad, scalloped potatoes, ham, rolls, fruit salad, bacon-wrapped asparagus and carrot cake.

 

James and Jena Zwyer

Sam & Susan Fleming (duh)

Kristine & Raymond Saperstein

Finally we rounded up the beyond-hyper kids, packed up the leftovers and washed about a thousand pots and pans. At bedtime I found Ryan in the bathroom, admiring his new gap-toothed grin. You can see here that the replacement tooth has already emerged, though a little behind the original one.

This morning he was thrilled to discover the "gold doubloon" the Tooth Fairy left under his pillow (funny, it looks just like the ones PaPa gave him for his birthday - HEY, WAIT A MINUTE...).

Art Show 2014

 The boys' preschool hosted its annual Art Show last night. The teachers work so hard to come up with great art projects for the kids, following different curricular approaches while also making sure the kids are enjoying the process.

Jack's classroom adopted two hermit crabs earlier this year so many of their projects have involved learning about crabs and building their own "crab-itats".  Jack named his crab "Control Train," a reference to our electric train set.

 The second piece from Jack is a watercolor-glue-salt multimedia project they worked on last summer.

Ryan's first featured piece was a beautiful string art heart.

 

He also contributed to the coffee filter heart mobile. As grown-up as he looks above, you can still see a little trace of chubby toddler in those elbow dimples!  

His teacher Anita also displayed a book featuring pictures a monster-themed project they worked on last fall.

Of course, Ryan and Jack's favorite part of the evening were the hors d'oeuvres.  Ryan ate about five pieces of celery while another little boy at the table devoured a kale salad.

Shaving Cream Easter Eggs

Anti-holiday as I am, I was originally not planning to do anything for Easter. However, I kept seeing posts about dyeing Easter Eggs with shaving cream in my Facebook feed, so I finally clicked on one and thought, "Oh, this is just the kind of mess Ryan and Jack like to make." The boys have always dyed Easter eggs the traditional way with Grandma and Grandpa Fleming, but they left today for a three week tour of the Netherlands - so if it was to be, it was up to me. 

Sam worked from home this morning as he had to catch an afternoon flight to Atlanta, so he got to participate in the mess-making too.

I bought cheap shaving cream from Wal-mart, which was a mistake - it was so stinky. My kitchen still smells like it hours later.

 This is what they looked like after we rolled them in shaving cream swirled with food coloring:

After we were finished with the eggs, Ryan wanted to play with the rest of the shaving cream. Given the smell, Sam was not planning to use it, so we let him go at it.

 He wanted to add more food coloring, too, to make the ocean.

We discovered using a whisk was a good way to get a nice even color.

Here's the finished product - not as vivid as the blogs would suggest, but the boys are pretty happy with them.