Easter Celebration #2

Between Passover, the basement flood and some very bad sleep in the house, we were not much up for an Easter celebration, and we decided to stay in San Jose as opposed to celebrating in Sacramento as we usually do.  My friend Heather (mother to Malachy's good friend Ryan) was nice enough to invite us to join her family for their big Easter festivities.

He understood the "gathering" part much better this time

As a side note, Heather's house backs up to her sister in laws house, and they have a gate connecting the two houses.  The celebration they have is both her's and her husband's families and it goes freely between the two yards.  

Malachy, Ryan and Ryan's cousin picking up jelly beans
out of the grass

I am so happy we were able to celebrate with them as we had a really great time.  Malachy was talking about the egg hunt and being able to be with his friend Ryan for days.  He woke up ready to go.  We hunted for eggs, we ate tons of good food, we were in the company of great people and we were able to enjoy the day as a family.  Best of all, the kids were all pooped afterwards and took great naps and slept very well at night.

It was incredibly difficult to take pictures (I had the big camera, and a VERY squirmy Lailah in my hands as well as Malachy asking me to help him find and open eggs), but I got a few.

Tegan found an egg

Tegan and Lailah tried REAL hard to get to the candy

Malachy didn't want to get to close to the girls
because they kept stealing his treats

While it was fantastic to see Malachy run around and have so much fun with the kids searching for eggs, perhaps my favorite moment was while we were eating.  I had finished eating and had Lailah in my lap while I was talking with some other people.  Lailah is not much of a lap baby and is usually squirming to get down now that she is so mobile, but she was suddenly pretty calm.  I looked down to see her gnawing on a piece of bacon.  I have no idea where she got it (God knows I would never leave any on my plate!).  I snatched it away from her and I swear the entire party looked over at me to see what was happening when she let out a huge shriek of protest.  She was MAD.  I tried to distract her with a toy, but she was not having it.  She kept lunging at the bacon.  Normally, her screaming leaves me a little unhappy, but I could not help but laugh the entire time.  She finally settled for a cracker.    I was kind of proud.

All dressed up

The most surprising thing about Easter to me was how much I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE seeing the girls in their Easter dresses.  Easter marks the first time the girls have been in poofy dresses.  I thought I hated them.  A couple days before Easter, I remembered I am supposed to have them in cute Easter garb.  I went shopping for them, only to find I was too late.  When you need to find just one dress, there is plenty available.  When you need to find two dresses that match or coordinate, in the same size, waiting until the day before Easter is a really bad idea.  I also got a taste of just how expensive these girls are going to be.  One dress, not too expensive.  Double it, add 2 sweaters (it was cold), 2 pairs of tights...and I didn't even go for shoes (they don't walk).  Ouch!  In the end, they ended up wearing the pretty dresses their Grandma Eileen got them for their birthday.  While shopping for them, it occurred to me that my little weeds would not fit into their birthday dresses come birthday time, so I may as well have them wear them before they can't.  Once I put them on them, I was in love all over again.  Even Malachy stopped dead in his tracks and let out a little sigh before saying, "Daddy, look at the pretty dresses.  Don't they look so cute?"  It was pretty cute.  He was right though, the girls look pretty cute in these dresses.  I now want to dress them like this every day.  Look at these pictures and you can see why.

Angel baby

pretty matching bow

Dreamy baby