Easter Egg Hunt!

Today we did our own easter egg hunt for the kids in our yard. We started at about 11am when the temp got to be about 53 degrees. It was beautiful outside and we have lots of hiding places in our yard. The previous residents were avid gardeners and they used many of the rocks that were on the lot before laying the foundation for landscaping. (The neighbors who have lived in this neighborhood for over 15 years told us they had to blow apart the rocks in the ground enough to lay concrete down for the foundation of this house.) There's big and small rocks all over the edges of our yard and many plants.

(That's Dylan with his "Yoda" walking stick he found during spring clean up.)Pete got up before everyone and hid the color-coded eggs, making Vince's and Dylan's harder to find. While Gabie's were right out in the open, he had no interest in picking them up and putting them in his basket. He found out that the rest of the kids' eggs made noise when shaken (they had coins in them), and after that he had even less interest in his eggs. (And since he won't let you take his hat off or his nuk out of his mouth, this is the best picture I could get!)

Faith was her usual poser self in front of the camera and loved the egg hunt.

She told Pete and me that this was the best easter ever. (She says that every year.)

Vince was having a hard time finding his last couple of eggs, and instead he found something that made Dylan's dreams come true: a treefrog! (Sorry-not the best picture!)Dylan wasn't sure if he'd ever see the infamous tree frogs that we saw so many of in Minnesota and immediately begged us to let him keep it. This one was extra special, too, because it was a very big gray tree frog! So, our day took a wild turn and we headed for the pet store after lunch. We bought substrate for it's home and crickets. Dylan said he knows God sent this to him for an easter gift just like he sent him an armadillo for a birthday gift! (However, I'm not really sure Dylan's position on the other critters that we've seen. In the past three days during our lawn clean up and just playing outside, we've seen six small reptiles. We know two of them for sure are some sort of skink, and the other ones could have been the same thing or small garter snakes. In fact, I just read that Oklahoma ranks third in all fifty states for it's number of reptile and amphibian species. They also have seven different kinds of poisonous snakes, including the cottonmouth/water moccassin. We're definitely not going to any beaches down here, but I think God meant for me to be here to overcome my fear of snakes!)

Anyway, after dinner and baths, we decorated easter eggs. Since we plan on eating them, we used crayons and stickers instead of artificial dyes. (Although if you have the time and energy, you can use lots of foods for natural dyes, like red onion peels boiled in water and vinegar.)

Vince decorated one to look like the fire-bellied toad we saw at the pet store because it's his favorite type of frog. In the future, we may have a frog colony in our home! (Yes, I can do frogs; amphibians are okay.)

What a day we had! Tomorrow we'll be at our church's easter performance and afterwards I'll be making a vegetarian easter dinner. The menu includes sticky buns with homemade whole wheat bread dough and fruit salad for brunch; dinner will be mock "meatloaf" with mushroom gravy, kale and olive oil mashed potatoes, garlic green beans, and upside-down caramelized apple cake for dessert. We are so excited for this coming day of Christ's resurrection!