Weekend Top Five 4/13/09

What a wonderful Easter day we had yesterday! It's days like that, no matter how few and far between, that make all of the other days worth it. Beautiful weather, agreeable moods, a few new toys to play with outside, and of course, chocolate galore!

So of course, the Weekend Top Five is filled with holiday weekend activity.


5. Easter Service at church
My hand bells only had to play one song, which was with the choir and a brass quartet our church had hired. The performance went great, which everyone was relieved for, since the rehearsal had been pretty rough.

My most exciting thing was that we finally got a really nice family picture while we were all gussied up. We never did one last Christmas because of finances and the church directory one before that was awful, so this was the first good one we got in about two years. Aren't my three guys handsome??


4. Easter Baskets
I found out Sunday afternoon that both boys had apparently "inspected" the baskets before we got up, but they didn't actually touch them, so I let it go in the name of excitement.

I had made up baskets for them with a little bit of candy and several little gifts each.



















Aaron was also pretty excited to see what the "Easter Bunny" had brought Mommy in her basket too.















Noah got a HUGE Bakugan ball and new magnetic cards to play with his bakugans. He spent pretty much the rest of the day taking it everywhere and seeing which magnetic things would pop it open.














3. Easter Egg Hunt Outside
Since it was forcasted to be an absolutely beautiful Easter Sunday (which it was), we had decided to hide the plastic eggs filled with candy outside in the yard this year for the boys to hunt for. After hiding them outside the night before, I started worrying about whether they would still be there in the morning, or would passersby see them and help themselves.

What I hadn't counted on was the fact that our yard is filled with VERY HUNGRY squirrels who were so interested in eating the candy that they would actually EAT THE PLASTIC to get to the candy inside. We found three plastic eggs eaten through.









But the boys still had a great time hunting...


Noah needed a little gentle reminding to slow down enough to make sure Aaron got some eggs

















But Aaron held his own quite well and we needn't have worried.











When they came inside to dump the candy into their baskets, we learned the second thing to remember about hiding eggs with candy outside...DON'T USE REESE'S PEANUT BUTTER BUNNIES. They were the only candy that melted so badly that we needed to throw most of them away.














2. Fun Easter Afternoon Outside
With our families still out of town and since I made meals all week long for Spring Break, we decided to eat lunch out at a restaurant and then come home to hang out for the rest of the afternoon. After a nap for Aaron, and the egg hunt (above) we stayed outside the rest of the afternoon.

One of things I was MOST excited about was teaching Noah how to throw a football.

Aaron had gotten a football as one of his Easter presents and I was able to teach Noah how to use the laces to hold it and throw it. I have been waiting forever to be able to play catch with him, and he was so excited to be able to do it the right way.





While Noah and I were playing catch with the football, Steve and Aaron spent a LONG time with Aaron's other new Easter gift, a bubble rocket.

This is thing is so cool. Usually bubble toys last about ten minutes and then they're forgotten. Not this one! The boys played with it for hours off and on all day, and we went through two full bottles of bubble solution (but well worth it)



It was fun watching Steve come up with new and creative ways to catch the rocket after the boys launched it.












Yes, we did other things this weekend as well. We went to Deb's daughter's birthday party on Saturday, but the pictures are too fun to see so I am waiting until Friday to post the entire story.

5. Visit with my Mother and Grandmother
On Friday, my mother was in town (really, 45 minutes south of here) visiting my grandmother so we went down for our semi-annual visit with her. I will leave details out as to why twice a year is plenty.

Since usually the visits are somewhat awkward, I decided to invite them to come to the Kalamazoo Public Museum with the boys instead of hanging around my grandmother's apartment. It turned out to be a very good idea.

I really enjoyed spending some time walking around the museum with my 93 year old grandmother. I thought it was funny as we were entering the museum to look up and see the street name that we were on was the same as my grandma's name, Eleanor.

Of course, I had to take a picture.












It was so neat to watch her look at the exhibits. Usually, I spend my time chasing the kids and never really get to see anything.

This time, I pretty much left the kids to their own devices, and hung with my grandma through many of the exhibits. Here she is looking at the movable art exhibit.












The most fun was walking through the "old time Kalamazoo" area and hearing stories about so many of the things she saw, which she either has or had replicas of to this day. And then when we got back to her apartment, she had fun showing me her examples of the things we saw at the museum.


So even though we had to put up with my mother saying swear words around the kids and talking to them as if they were babies, it ended up being a neat couple of hours to spend with my grandma. She also had purchased some new books to share with boys, sending home several of them with us. Once a teacher, always a teacher!





Ahead this week: I HAVE to find a new OBGYN. I have been meaning to get a hold of my step-sister-in-law (say that five times fast) who practices north of here to see if she can recommend someone here in GR, but I haven't had a chance yet. It is starting to become more dire every day that I need to get going on this.

Also this week, open applications for Schools Of Choice are Monday morning to try to find a school for Aaron for next year, I am driving for a field trip for Noah on Wednesday, and I am finally back to being Friday room mother this week. Because of circumstances, it has been a long time since I have fulfilled my duty.

I hope you will come link up if you posted about your holiday weekend. The weekend top five has been less active lately and I would love for us to share linky love again. I cant wait to see how all of you shared this wonderful weekend with your families as well.

Have a a great week!