Tulip Festival

Saturday is my favorite day of the week!  I get to be with Little Man all day with no interruptions.  We saw it was a partly cloudy, but clearing.  Today was the last day of the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Pointe.  We went last year and Mister had a great time. See last year's post here.

But last year he wasn't walking and it was much easier this year.  He loved to point to all the tulips and tell me the colors.  "lello, Mom.  Pohpoh, Mom"  It was really, really great.  Really, really cold.

I am working really hard on making sure I get great exercise, so I went around once (1.9 miles...) and found that Aiden was asleep, so I went around again.  By the time I finished the second time, I was exhausted.  Big hills.

Then, we went to Uncle Chris's house to plant flowers and clean the flower beds.  I had purchased gardening tools and gloves for Mister.  He was FILTHY by the end of the gardening, but happy.  Very, very happy.

Then, Uncle Chris didn't want to go alone to a wedding reception of a friend's daughter, so we got cleaned up and went to the reception which was.... AT THE UNION STATION!  Oh, yeah....  It was amazingly fun.  

I must say that my son was in the car seat for over 4 hours today.  He was expected to be polite and happy for the whole day and did marvelously well.

And he is currently sleeping marvelously well.  

Hat

Aiden usually hates hats.  But he found this one yesterday and would not take it off

My little Oliver Twist.

He is risen!

Luke 24: 6:  He is not here, but is risen.

Seven simple words that saved mankind. And this year, I really needed to remember what Easter was all about.

Aiden and I headed down to Temple Square for a little refresher course of Spring, the temple, and our Saviour.  

Aiden was there for the fountains mostly.

Aiden at the fountain by the South Visitors Center.

 Is there a bad shot of the temple?  Point and click.  Great picture.

 Of course the main reason we were there.  We went up the ramp and it was very quiet.  People were there, apparently in deep, deep thought.  When we rounded the corner and the statue came into view, Aiden screamed, "JESUS!!!  JESUS!!!  HOOORAY!!!"

The entire quiet room erupted in laughter.  He went up to the base and blew a kiss way, way up high to Jesus.  

It was very tender.  I know that my son loves his Savior, too.  And I know my Savior loves me and loves my boy.

THE EGG HUNT!!!

Our family Easter Egg Hunt had to be moved to after Easter.  We were invited to several - and I mean several - other egg hunts, but I decided that this year, while Aiden is still really curious about things and likes to really experience things, we would do our own small one-on-one with Aiden.

Which included over 60 eggs.  First off, not all of them were for Aiden.  We invited Smeds and Breanna and Kelle were sweet enough to come and have a toddler version of an egg hunt.  We just sprinkled all the eggs around the grass and let him find one, open it, and really experience whatever was inside.  It took us almost an hour, but he enjoyed every second of it.   We did candy, bubbles and other small trinkets in the eggs this year.  They let Aiden open all of them, but then (due to Mom's diet) gave away most of the candy, but kept the small bubble things.

At first, Aiden just thought we were cleaning up these stupid eggs that someone just left lying around.  Then, we opened one... and then another... and then he realized that the eggs were CRAP!  There was treasure inside.  Then, the egg hunt changed.  Dramatically.

Thanks, Kelle, for doing the photography.  Thanks, Uncle Chris for the use of your back yard.  Sorry you were out of town.

CHOCOLATE!!

Mouth full of candy.

He gets the tongue thing from me.

Na Na blowing bubbles for Little Man

My favorite picture of the day.  Hands down.  Love it!!!  Click on it.  Make it bigger.  It will make you laugh harder.  Promise.

Mom accidentally packed an empty egg.  Look at the sadness in his face.  Bad mother award.

Awesome day.  After that, we took a much needed nap.  Then a trip to the park where some little slimy kid tried to pop Aiden's beach ball while the kid's parents were in their car watching the kids play.  Come be a parent!!!


Whew.  Sorry.  Then a nice traditional Easter meal - Hawaiian Turkey Burgers with homemade sweet potato fries and ultimate dipping sauce.

Easter Eggs.

First off, if you haven't seen the egg decorating shenanigans from last year, check out this post.  Hilarious.  

Yesterday's 12 Days of Easter finally said we could decorate Easter Eggs.  (actually, I work from home on Thursdays and I planned it that way...  )

I tried a new technique that my dear sister, Teresa, told me about.  It is tie-dying eggs with silk ties.  They turned out gorgeous.  I wish I had found more ties.  Maybe a DI hunt this weekend.  They turned out amazing.  

Check it out here: Silk Tie Easter Eggs

They turned out gorgeous.  Especially the red ones.  I will definitely do this next year.  

Then, onto the fun.  Before getting Mister ready, I cooked the eggs and wrote on them with a white crayon so they would be a big surprise when they came out of the colored water.

At first, he didn't want to wear his oilcloth apron (see below), but it was DARLING (thanks, Aunt Jodi) and necessary.  He was used to it soon enough...

I love this picture.  Just his cute little bum and the apron.

I let Mister take out eggs, put them in other colors, and just generally have an amazing time doing whatever he wanted.  He was actually very gentle and we only had one fatality, but that was Mom's fault.  

We used Neon food coloring this year and it makes ALL the difference in color.  

Notice that there are a lot of brown eggs?  Because they were dipped and redipped in all sorts of color combinations.  He LOVED it!!

The Surprise part of the egg!

When we were all done, he sat back, exhausted.  This was the shot as he was sitting back against the wall.  He said, "Whoa." 

I agree.