April, also a month late

Easter was at the end of spring break this year.  Anna and Drew couldn't wait to dye eggs!

Anna enjoyed sharing her expertise with Drew, who only wanted to play with the spoons.

Easter morning was awesome!  Anna and Drew got lots of candy.  Drew had no desire to hunt eggs.  He spent most of the morning eating sugar. 

Therefore, Anna found ALL of the eggs herself, in record time.  Even if Drew had wanted to hunt for eggs, he only would have found one in the time it took Anna to snatch up the other 2389576.

"Look, we got colored bubbles!" (then she went outside and dumped them all within 5 minutes)

"Drew, what do you want for breakfast?"
"CANDY!!!"

We went to Nanny and Poppy's for dinner.  Aunt Rochelle and Aunt Sheila came from New Orleans, too!

Eating chips and dip and watching movies.  Does it get any better?

After dinner, we had an Easter egg fight.  This was a new concept for everyone there because every other year, I have forgotten the eggs.

You tap mash the eggs (narrow top to narrow top) against each other and the egg that breaks is the loser.  The winning egg will be paired with other winning eggs in a fight to the end.

I had the obvious advantage because there is skill involved.  I learned from my grandmother, who was an egg-fighting master.

First, you must completely surround the tip with your fingers, therefore providing extra support for the shell.  A quick attack is usually the best method, and when you do a sneak attack from the bottom, you will usually cause the most cracking in your opponent's egg.

"Hey, I think that one is cracked..."

I think the first annual Easter Egg Fight was a "hit"!

Drew is into bandaids.  He puts them anywhere and everywhere.  I've had to start hiding them.

Anna went to a birthday party at Build-A-Bear.  I have never been to a store that had so many fashion accessories for a stuffed bear.  It's almost impossible to choose an outfit because they're all so cute.  First world problems...

On the weekend before her birthday, I brought Anna to the mall to select a new outfit for her bear.  We also rode on the carousel, the escalators, and the elevator.  For two hours.  It was awesome.

Sunday dinner before Anna's birthday (on a Tuesday this year) included presents and a cake.

Anna wanted to have her birthday party in the backyard this year, complete with a pinata and face painting.  Here is her good friend, Madeline, from school.

The whole gang from Teresa's was also there.  Here is Parker, the pinata master, and Anna's future husband.

Drew wasn't too sure of what was going on, but he had fun hitting it with the bat.

We probably put 10 pounds of candy inside, so everyone got lots!

I asked some senior girls from school to come and do the face painting.  They are way more artistic than I am.

Anna asked for brownie cupcakes (with no frosting). 

After the party, Anna started playing with all of her toys.  She got a butterfly magnet painting set from Angelina that she allowed Drew to help her paint.  It was so cute that I just had to take some pictures!

We went to Ag Magic the next day at LSU.  The highlight of the entire experience was the baby animals.

Anna LOVED the chicks!

And she made me take this silly picture of her!



March, a month late.

We have been enjoying the warm spring weather by playing outside a lot. The kids love to feed the ducks in the lake nearby.



Drew likes to watch the resident nutria swim around the best.



A Glamour Shot of Anna



And a cute picture of Drew.



Grandma and Grandpa came for a visit during Grandma's spring break. They got to try out the new air mattress in the playroom, since we got rid of the guest room.



The ducks liked Anna's handouts the best, as she tended to throw entire hunks of bread at them. "Big score, ducks!"
Drew ate most of his bread.



Last Friday there were only 7 kids in my AP Biology class- caused by a combination of the impending spring break, LSU spring testing, the Mu Alpha Theta convention, and the culmination of Senior Projects. Those present built a fort under the lab tables and studied, sort of.



Last Saturday, the neighborhood had its annual Easter Egg hunt. This is the first year that we haven't had other plans, so I loaded the kids up in the wagon and headed out to give Shaun some peace and quiet while he recovered from a nasty cold.



Drew didn't really understand that he was supposed to put the eggs in his basket and leave them there. I have some videos of him picking up eggs, then dumping them out repeatedly.



Until I told him that there was chocolate inside of the eggs... then he immediately plunked down and started eating, refusing to stop to go get more!



Anna's age group was in a different area of the park, so Sam graciously accompanied her while I filmed Drew. They HAULED those eggs in!



Enjoying the fruits of their labor the next morning:



YEAH!!! CANDY FOR BREAKFAST!!!


Anna found some "Jazzercise" clothes at the store and insisted that I buy them for her. Since she is too young to actually go to a Jazzercise class with me, we have been going running in the evenings. She can do about half a mile right now, which I think is pretty impressive!

Because she is fairly ODD, we have to make running/exercise a privelege that she only gets to enjoy when she listens to us and follows our directions... This is the same method we employed when we told her that only adults get to eat broccoli.