Easter eggs (pictures)

My mom's friend who hosted my baby shower for Lucas around this time last year (wah!) has an easter egg dyeing night every year before Easter. This year my mom called and asked if she could take Lucas. I told her no but I would bring him by when I was done volunteering at the hospital.

So that's what we did. Pardon me looking like crap, Luke has decided to sleep as little as possible and I can't be bothered with makeup in the few precious minutes I have to get ready without him screaming or emptying out our bathroom drawers and cabinets.

My baby is looking very toddler-ish in this picture!

Wow!

Let's just stick my hand in!

What's so funny? (Note the green hand)

Diving right into the dye

Me and my baby. (He does not mind it when we put stuff on his head.)

These are fun toys! (He cracked like 4 of my mom's eggs.)

This is fun!

Serious business! (This was before the hand turned green. My mom, me, and Luke.)

Eggs!

Picture with our hostess! (Who is also making Luke's birthday cake because she is crazy talented!)

Easter was good. Joe had to work. Luke and I spent the day with my family. (My sister called at 10 and said to come over and bring my appetite. That was easy.) Luke played and played and played. Then we went to my grandmother's house for dinner and met Joe there. It was a pretty quiet night. My grandmother gave Luke this car with a dog in it that plays the Most Annoying Music Ever but Luke LOVES it. He claps his hands and dances and laughs every time it says or sings something, so I'll deal with it (for now. If the batteries run out...I might take my time replacing them.) She also gave him a stuffed animal duck which he found pretty amusing too. (And made me think of Brooke and baby duck Eliza.) The "easter bunny" brought him a ride on train that has a bunch of different spinning toys and stuff on it. The seat lifts up and has a spot to store toys and things. Luke's favorite thing to do is to fill it with plastic easter eggs and then empty it. He has ridden on the train too but he's not crazy about it yet, I don't think he likes feeling out of control when someone is pushing him.

This was the first time in two years that we didn't go to the cemetery on Easter. I should feel guilty about it, but I don't really. (It's 45 min away and I didn't feel like driving out there myself when I was already really tired. And Saturday we were busy with the Easter bunny and trying to get as much done around the house as possible since it was Joe's only day off.) Maybe this is progress? I definitely thought about Olivia a lot, Easter is always hard for that. In fact, Saturday night we were at Applebees getting dinner. Luke started getting a little whiny and then something at the ceiling caught his attention and he stopped, transfixed. I looked up to see what had his rapt attention and it was a pink sparkly streamer with a butterfly at the end of it, hanging right over our table. So then I looked around the restaurant and they had streamers everywhere, but all of the other streamers had bunnies and eggs and flowers and ducks...no other butterflies except the very one we were sitting under and I wouldn't have noticed without Luke staring at it. So, take that for what you will.

Luke has been taking steps here and there for a week or two now. On the 6th, he walked about 6 or 7 steps in a row from Joe to me, the most he had ever done without lunging forward/falling/grabbing something/crawling. Today he started walking around the room, on his own, towards stuff he wanted. *sigh* So I guess he's an official walker now though he's still predominantly crawling. How fast it goes. It's so hard to believe that at this time last year, he wasn't even here yet.

Easter Bunny

So the Bass Pro shops here do free Easter Bunny and Santa pictures every year (and also let you take your own if you wish.) I am a sucker for a good (or free) deal. I was iffy on doing an Easter bunny picture because Luke is too young to understand it, a lot of the easter bunnies now look pretty creepy to me (including the one at Bass Pro), and I wasn't sure we wanted to mess with it. Today is Joe's only day off work for the week and Luke has been sleeping badly (or really I should just say NOT sleeping) this week, so I am extra tired too.

Alas, the mommy guilt won. I can't *not* get Luke's picture with the easter bunny for his first Easter. Which also happens to be his Last First Holiday until/except his birthday. (Wah!) We went to my mom's friends last night to dye Easter eggs, which Luke loved a lot (especially dipping his hand in the green dye), and also grabbing and smashing multiple eggs. I think we should have some cute pictures from that soon.

Anyway, so we went, after stopping at McAlister's for lunch first to get Luke covered in mac n cheese. We got to Bass Pro about 1 and it was packed as usual. (It's actually usually pretty busy all weekends.) The line to see the Easter bunny stretched to the back of the store. We got in it, Joe started whining but Luke was good (better than Joe.) Luckily the line moved quickly. But not quickly enough for us not to notice about 2 families ahead of us was a couple with a little boy just barely older than Luke, with a daughter between 2 or 3. I didn't even notice them at first until the dad was taking the little boy off to see the fish while mom and daughter stayed in line. The daughter tried to go with her dad and mom says, No Olivia, you stay here with mommy. And how's that for an Easter weekend sucker punch? That line could not move fast enough. And then they kept talking and her mom kept saying her name over and over again. Enough that Joe had walked away to look around and then came back and even he noticed them. He asked if I was okay and I said yes but ugh. Their turn came and the little girl smiled for the picture while her little brother cried. It never stops sucking that she isn't here. And even though Olivia's name is her name and we knew it was popular when we chose it, it sucks sometimes randomly hearing it when we're out like that. If the little girl's name hadn't been Olivia, we probably wouldn't have even really noticed or paid much attention to them.

Anyway, Luke didn't love the Easter bunny, but he didn't have a total meltdown either. He made a face like he might cry but then just sorta looked around and by then it was over. So we'll call it a success. I think this particular Easter Bunny was rather creepy looking so I wouldn't have really blamed him for crying, especially since this was his first experience with costumed characters.