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What a fun, special, kid-filled weekend! And when I say "kid," I mean NINE kids over the age of thirteen, and also very tall kids who are adorable and who also eat a lot. But we had a really fun time! They started trickling in Thursday afternoon, and by Saturday afternoon, Ladd had them on Easter egg filling duty. For years he has headed up the Easter egg hunt for the little kids in our church, and he considers it his permanent assignment now.
He also considers it our kids' permanent assignment. It's part of their annual tradition! Jamar, Paige, and Bryce were on one side of the room with the candy, while Ladd and Paige's FRIEND (ahem ahem, more on this below) were on the other side of the room with the toys. I was on keep-the-house-from-completely-falling-apart cleanup duty since we now live in a much smaller house (will share this whole story another time!!) and things can go downhill really fast with dishes, dust, and clutter.
Six hundred (😂) eggs later, and they were all done! And I had to laugh, because the candy crew, without any prompting from their banana-hating mother, instinctively pulled all the banana Laffy Taffy they encountered because, they all agreed, "No little kid wants to open a plastic Easter egg and find a piece of banana Laffy Taffy inside." Truer words were never spoken!
The best part is that later Saturday night, when Ladd and I filled the money eggs for our family Easter egg hunt the next day (Nan started this tradition many years ago!), Ladd stuffed all the banana Laffy Taffy into a large gold egg for one of the kids to find. What a "treasure!" Ha!
Sunday after church, we went to my father-in-law Chuck's house to have brunch! Chuck was proud to have baked the Easter ham all by himself (it was delicious!) but the problem was, it was a 30-pound ham and a lot easier to lower into the oven than to lift out of the oven. Fortunately we had a college football player on hand to help...but it was certainly an adventure. I'll share more photos of the ham removal in a separate post, because I'm still laughing about it.
Speaking of Bryce (and his mullet! Help me! 😂), here he is with Mauricio. Love the sweet bond these two young men share. And yes, mullets. They are back, evidently? Are you aware of this? I tried to complain to management, but my concerns were not acknowledged.
And speaking of football players in general, here is Todd with his high school football teammate, Noah! Noah lives in Pawhuska, but goes to church with us and we were so glad he crashed our family Easter!
The more the merrier, I say! And along those lines, here's another Easter crasher. Meet Mitchell, Paige's FRIEND. We were so happy he came to town to join in the fun! Mitchell's a very sweet guy, easy to talk to, and we think he's just neato.
And while we're on the subject of cute couples...it's so nice to have Alex and Mauricio in town, almost a year after their wedding on the ranch! They're fun to have around, because Alex is a sweet big sister to Todd, and Mauricio loves Bryce, and Paige and Mauricio bicker constantly about each other's football and basketball teams, and Jamar loves Alex and Mauricio like they're his mom and dad. 😂 Sweet dynamics all around!
Finally, after all the eggs and all the egg hunting and all the ham and all the food, I got the kids together for one big group pic. Elliot was here from Seattle! Look at how tall he's getting!
It took a few tries to really nail the perfect shot. Actually it took about a hundred tries. And anyway, it's not about the perfect shot. It's about the fun memories!!
I love these kids! From left to right: Noah, Todd, Stu, Bryce, Alex, Mauricio, Elliot, Paige, Jamar, Mitchell! And Stu's mustache. 😂
Hope you all had a very happy weekend!
I’m a desperate housewife, I live in the country, and I’m obsessed with butter, Basset Hounds, and Ethel Merman. Welcome to my frontier!
