Easter and Birthday Fun

Hey, remember this Easter?

Well, Easter 2010 was a little nicer than that! We had an absolutely gorgeous weekend in Michigan, and we had such a great time visiting everybody over there! It felt like summer on Friday, our first full day there, with highs in the mid 80s. I thought I heard that it was only in the 70s down in Florida, so that made our Good Friday actually warmer than Grandma Baldwin's in Fort Myers. Ha ha ha! : )

Saturday was interesting. We decided to take the kids to an Easter Egg hunt at a mall. Silly me, I assumed this meant eggs would be hidden all over the mall, and there would actually be some searching involved. I was wrong. The "hunt" was confined to the play area, and hundreds of eggs were literally just tossed all over the floor in there. There were so many eggs, the kids could hardly keep from stepping on them. We further learned that there was nothing actually inside the eggs, and upon finishing the hunt, the kids were expected to give the eggs back. We didn't want to stand in a line that was worthy of an amusement park ride for the most pointless Easter egg hunt ever. So we wandered around, complained about the long lines for all the other Easter festivities, forced the kids to do a little shopping with us, and then went back home. So in the end, it wasn't a real fun outing for them.

But we did go home and color some eggs. That's a Michigan State egg in the middle, in honor of the Final Four game which they played (and lost) later that day.

We also decorated this Easter "Bunny Hutch."

I think the bunny that lives in it might be psychotic.

Then it was time for birthday presents. A late present for Mia ...

... and an early present for Claire.

We recently booked a cottage right on the beach in Door County for a week in August, so Ellen got Claire her very own monogrammed beach bag, filled with beach goodies!

One of the goodies was this adorable personalized monkey towel.

I think she likes it.

We wanted to get Mia a fun girly toy, since of course boy toys still dominate at their house. So we picked out this shopping cart, and got her a few packets of food to throw in there.

She can even take her baby for a ride in it.

Easter morning brought an Easter egg hunt.

And a lot of Easter baskets. Elsa found one of hers with Maisy's help.

Seriously, there were A LOT of Easter baskets.

The Easter bunny brought lots of fun goodies for the kids. Everybody got springtime pajamas from the Michigan Easter bunny and Peeps bubble blowers from the Wisconsin Easter bunny, plus much more.

We headed to Grandpa and Grandma J.'s for dinner ... and there were more Easter baskets and eggs to find. (No, Elsa didn't suddenly break out in hives or anything. That's an Easter egg tattoo on her face.)

Carter found about 30 eggs to Elsa's 6.

Already hopped up on sugar.

Claire searches for eggs with Grandma.

Thanks to everybody in Michigan for the wonderful Easter! We had so much fun with you guys, and Elsa was very sad to leave. We'll be back this summer!