With all the hustle and bustle and indecision on our part about whether to pack up five kids (two of which were sick, remember???), we did manage to squeeze in a few of our Spring/Easter traditions. 

One of which was the kids receiving their spring baskets (and not from a mutant rabbit with a bow around his neck) on Saturday.  Not sure if I’ve mentioned this (but I probably have for the past three years) but we give them baskets full of about three things on Saturday instead of Sunday.  It’s easier than wrestling chocolate away from them…they have plenty of time to play with/watch/remember what Resurrection Sunday is about…Resurrection Sunday is reserved for the actual celebration of Christ’s resurrection not chocolate and food (oh, and traveling six hours away to watch a shuttle launch).

Another tradition is dying eggs and adding those to our Resurrection eggs and hunt them.

At the time, Liam was drugged with acetemetophin so he was good to go. 

A weekend trip to Granddaddy and Ge’s kicked off our travels for several weeks.  This was the first time we had traveled since Thanksgiving.  If you know us well, then you know that’s unusual for us…Mark says our family motto is “Go!  Go!  Go!”  But, God had other plans for a few months.  We were home in December trying to make sure Bryant stuck around to full term.  Then January and February brought illnesses and snow.  Finally, March has rolled around and with the pollen came a chance for us to visit family. 

Aside from the drama of a not so daring Ceili Rain having to endure a puppy yelping at her (which caused her to cry which caused the dog to yelp more), we had a great visit (and the dog and Ceili Rain got used to each other and she only fussed at the dog one time later on when the dog took a toy away from her).

With the new warm weather and not much pollen (yet), we are heading out more and more.  We’ve discovered that Josiah is a boy’s boy!  He loves playing in the dirt and more than that getting muddy and covered in it.  This is funny because if we are eating a “finger” food, he requests a wet washcloth beside him to clean his hands every five seconds.  Not so outside though!  All bets are off when it comes to the mud and dirt.

Being that Ceili Rain is a “Spring baby” she hasn’t been outside much.  She’s just not been able to get used to being out on the grass…so we are now beginning her introduction to the outside world!  To help, she gets a walker toy so she move about on the grass and get used to the feel of it!  She enjoyed it but not when I had to divert her around the holes!

Actually, it’s not.  In February, when there was a warm snap (thankfully), we ventured out to a battle reenactment.  It was a Civil War battle that was fought near where we live.  We met some friends there and had a wonderful time.  I was expecting some rinky dink reenactment with not much going.  I have to say I was pleasantly surprised…in fact, we didn’t get to see everything they had set up.  Tents selling Civil War memorabilia and of course, wooden swords and guns (the boys were in heaven).  Zoe and I wanted to go to all the tents selling dresses…and we did hit quite a few (to which I kept telling Zoe I could make those same dresses for her if she wanted).  The battle was pretty neat and managed to see (and feel quite a bit).  We, being our first time and arriving late, chose to sit near the cannons.  They were extremely….extremely loud.  We knew they’d be loud but we didn’t realize that we couldn’t see, for the most part, when the cannons would go off.  So when a round was fired the first shot just made you jump.  Each time.

So here’s the pics from our day:

Zoe and Laura learned out to make rag dolls out of strips of fabric.  The seamstress had an extremely old machine that she used.  It was really neat to see and made me grateful for my new digital sewing machine!