Wow, what a great day! It's been a long time since I've had so much fun. I of course could never have had that much fun without all of the friends and family that joined us in such a beautiful day!
It started early... Ethan slept for 7 hours that night--woohoo! I was up by 6am to start getting everyone ready for the 10am mass. We made it out the door by 9:08am, I was so proud of myself, and I didn't forget anything. Grandpa and Grandma P. (Nates parents) met us at Church and were a HUGE HUGE help during mass. The twins actually did pretty good, I can't complain. It's amazing how loud they can sound in a church. I can honestly say I maybe heard 5 minutes of what was said, I was so busy with one twin or the other. Ethan was great and slept through all of it. Jon of course was good and such a big help as well.
We then came home and I had to get to work! It was nice to have Nate's parents there to help, not sure I could have gotten everything done before hand if they weren't.
It started early... Ethan slept for 7 hours that night--woohoo! I was up by 6am to start getting everyone ready for the 10am mass. We made it out the door by 9:08am, I was so proud of myself, and I didn't forget anything. Grandpa and Grandma P. (Nates parents) met us at Church and were a HUGE HUGE help during mass. The twins actually did pretty good, I can't complain. It's amazing how loud they can sound in a church. I can honestly say I maybe heard 5 minutes of what was said, I was so busy with one twin or the other. Ethan was great and slept through all of it. Jon of course was good and such a big help as well.
We then came home and I had to get to work! It was nice to have Nate's parents there to help, not sure I could have gotten everything done before hand if they weren't.
Family/friends started showing up around 1pm and the party had started :-)
Alyssa and cousin Roan (who's 3 months younger)
We had some great appetizers! We then gave the kids their baskets. We decided this year that they each would have one basket and we would all fill them. I think we need bigger baskets for next year! But the kids seemed to love them. It was hard to get the little ones to even acknowledge the baskets but oh well.
Michael and Makenzie
Daddy with Jake and Aly
Next came the egg toss. I think this is our 4th or 5th year of doing the egg toss. It became a tradition when Nathan mentioned that they always did one when he was growing up. We love games so it became a yearly event. We had 6 teams this year and I teamed up with Nate--mistake?--maybe! We were the 2nd team out, Nate said my throw was bad but it broke when he caught it--you can decide :-) Nate's parents won the big toss! It was a pretty clean egg toss this year.
We then decided that it was time for the Easter Bunny to get here and hide the eggs. So all 8 of the kids and Grandpa and Grandma P went into the playroom. It was a ZOO in there! The rest of us went on a mission to hide eggs. We had a lot of eggs to hide, close to 200 I think. Now mind you we had kids of all ages... Michael 13, Makenzie 10, Jonathan 8, Kaylin almost 3, Jacob and Alyssa 14 months, Roan 11 months and Ethan 7 weeks (he of course didn't find any eggs :-) ) We then released the kids and it took maybe an hour to find all the eggs. It was so much fun. Jake had no interest in finding any eggs.. he was much to busy whining at everything (poor guy is getting molars). Aly had fun hunting for eggs and even put them in her basket. She did start off by trying to eat them and even had a green tongue from the dye of the eggs! She was a lot of fun to walk around with. The big kids did great and I think Jon won for the most eggs collected. But Michael and Makenzie were having a lot of fun hiding their own eggs for Kaylin to find, too cute! Kaylin even found some that the big kids missed!
Aly and an egg she found... Kaylin finding eggs... Kaylin, Michael and Jon.
Jake hanging out... Me and Aly.... Jon in search!
After that was over, Ron (my cousin Meg's husband) started up a whiffle ball game. We've never played and boy was it fun! We didn't really have teams and after Ron hit the whiffle ball over the fence (1st hit) we then had to use a big plastic purple ball. I even got a couple hits and scored twice I think. I laughed so hard and had so much fun, I think we all did! I did trip Jon when he was rounding 2nd, he wasn't pleased but it got a good laugh :-)
Joey sliding into 3rd.... The boys lost the ball...
Those that weren't playing held babies, or jumped on the trampoline or cooked, or just sat around chatting and eating ymmy food.
The fans...
Dinner time was upon us soon after! Nate bbq'd some GREAT shish-ka-bobs and we had a big ham and lots of yummy salads and rolls. We of course also had some great desserts. My cousin Megan made my mom's Carrot cake which was so so good! Mom would have been pleased.
All the kids made it through the day and we put them to bed not long after dinner.
I can't get over how everything just fell into place yesterday making it wonderful. I'm sure my mom helped with that. She would have turned 60 yesterday and we joked that it sure would have been fun to tease her about it! Although she would have gotten me back since I turn 30 next week. I still say on a regular basis that Ethan was her little present to us, and he does still have some of her red hair.
Ethan and his precious smile.
I'm sitting here eating some of LaLa's yummy German Potato Salad and enjoying having the windows open. Did I mention the dogs ate WAY too many eggs and they really don't smell that great today?!?! Jon goes back to school tomorrow and I'm looking forward to having things go back to normal around here. Well as normal as things get with all of these great kids.
Next came the egg toss. I think this is our 4th or 5th year of doing the egg toss. It became a tradition when Nathan mentioned that they always did one when he was growing up. We love games so it became a yearly event. We had 6 teams this year and I teamed up with Nate--mistake?--maybe! We were the 2nd team out, Nate said my throw was bad but it broke when he caught it--you can decide :-) Nate's parents won the big toss! It was a pretty clean egg toss this year.
We then decided that it was time for the Easter Bunny to get here and hide the eggs. So all 8 of the kids and Grandpa and Grandma P went into the playroom. It was a ZOO in there! The rest of us went on a mission to hide eggs. We had a lot of eggs to hide, close to 200 I think. Now mind you we had kids of all ages... Michael 13, Makenzie 10, Jonathan 8, Kaylin almost 3, Jacob and Alyssa 14 months, Roan 11 months and Ethan 7 weeks (he of course didn't find any eggs :-) ) We then released the kids and it took maybe an hour to find all the eggs. It was so much fun. Jake had no interest in finding any eggs.. he was much to busy whining at everything (poor guy is getting molars). Aly had fun hunting for eggs and even put them in her basket. She did start off by trying to eat them and even had a green tongue from the dye of the eggs! She was a lot of fun to walk around with. The big kids did great and I think Jon won for the most eggs collected. But Michael and Makenzie were having a lot of fun hiding their own eggs for Kaylin to find, too cute! Kaylin even found some that the big kids missed!
Aly and an egg she found... Kaylin finding eggs... Kaylin, Michael and Jon.
Jake hanging out... Me and Aly.... Jon in search!
After that was over, Ron (my cousin Meg's husband) started up a whiffle ball game. We've never played and boy was it fun! We didn't really have teams and after Ron hit the whiffle ball over the fence (1st hit) we then had to use a big plastic purple ball. I even got a couple hits and scored twice I think. I laughed so hard and had so much fun, I think we all did! I did trip Jon when he was rounding 2nd, he wasn't pleased but it got a good laugh :-)
Joey sliding into 3rd.... The boys lost the ball...
Those that weren't playing held babies, or jumped on the trampoline or cooked, or just sat around chatting and eating ymmy food.
The fans... Dinner time was upon us soon after! Nate bbq'd some GREAT shish-ka-bobs and we had a big ham and lots of yummy salads and rolls. We of course also had some great desserts. My cousin Megan made my mom's Carrot cake which was so so good! Mom would have been pleased.
All the kids made it through the day and we put them to bed not long after dinner.
I can't get over how everything just fell into place yesterday making it wonderful. I'm sure my mom helped with that. She would have turned 60 yesterday and we joked that it sure would have been fun to tease her about it! Although she would have gotten me back since I turn 30 next week. I still say on a regular basis that Ethan was her little present to us, and he does still have some of her red hair.
Ethan and his precious smile.I'm sitting here eating some of LaLa's yummy German Potato Salad and enjoying having the windows open. Did I mention the dogs ate WAY too many eggs and they really don't smell that great today?!?! Jon goes back to school tomorrow and I'm looking forward to having things go back to normal around here. Well as normal as things get with all of these great kids.
Glad you guys had such a good Easter!
ReplyDeleteI just want to snuggle Ethan!!!