Easter

Easter is a magical time. Obviously, it is the time that we celebrate Christ's dieing for us and his resurrection. But, with a kid, there are so many fun things to do as well.

A tradition that Joel's family always did was an Easter tree. On Palm Sunday, you cut a branch from a flowering tree, like a crab apple, you put the branch in water in the house, and on Easter, it blossoms. Wally and I cut a couple branches from a crab apple tree and the pear tree mid-Holy week, and decorated it with Easter eggs. Wally is very much into making silly faces for pictures.
Wally and I also decorated Easter eggs. Wally started out being very careful and watching the eggs to make sure they were the right brightness...
Then I mentioned to him that he could put the eggs in multiple colors to make fancy eggs and new colors. Next thing I knew, he had nearly 2 dozen eggs in his dye cups at the same time...that Wally!

Wally worked very hard on every egg, and was very proud of his work. This year, rather than breaking the large majority of eggs, only 2 of 24 were cracked at the end!
The Easter bunny showed up at Hy-vee the day before Easter and hid eggs in the parking lot. When Wally saw the Easter Bunny, he ran right up to him and gave him a huge hug and kiss. I was too slow with the camera of course. Wally is not shy about sharing love with giant animals. After Wally found a few eggs in the parking lot, he began searching for trash. He learned about Earth Day in preschool the day before, and is taking it very seriously. He was much more into picking up trash than eggs...he continues to do so today. Because it looked like it wasn't supposed to be very nice weather for Easter, we decided to let Wally have his Easter present a day early. We got him a bicycle a couple weeks ago and hid it in the blue Blazer. A week before Easter, we were at a baseball game and decided to let Wally ride home in the Blazer with Dad while I picked up pizza in the van. After it was too late, Joel remembered that Wally's bike was in the back. Wally crawled into the Blazer and looked right into the back because he was looking for a toy, but he didn't seem to notice the bike...maybe he was too focused on finding the toy. On the way home he yelled out the window to pedestrians, "Happy Easter!" Later that week, Wally made a paper Easter egg with a drawing of a bicycle in it. We asked him why he drew a bike (figuring it was because he saw his new one) and he responded that he thought it would be silly because chickens come from eggs, not bikes! We were thinking...did he really not see the bike? I decided to get his response to the bike on camera, so I waited outside for Joel and Wally to come out. As you see, he was happy, but not really surprised. Later that day, Wally said to Joel, "That is the bike that was in the blue truck." When Joel asked why he didn't mention that he knew it was back there, Wally responded, "Because it was supposed to be a surprise!" Did he really see the bike, decide it was a surprise, and decide not to respond at all to it? I guess we will never really know.

Wally knew exactly what to do with it the first time he got on.

Within minutes, he was cruising around our loop. He has made many many laps since then. He would make the loops faster, except that he must stop and pick up all trash and dandelions. The Easter bunny left Wally a Zhu-zhu pet and a chocolate Easter egg with a duck (basically a Peep) inside. I thought Wally would get a kick out of it, but as you can see in the video, he didn't really care that much...but I tried hard!

Aw, a cute little ducky (that he gave to me to eat - he wouldn't touch the thing, and can't keep anything for himself - except for chocolate).

Notice the chunk of chocolate shell stuck between his glasses and nose. I guess glasses can be handy!

Last year, we thought that it would be nice this year for Wally to have a little competition with the egg hunting from Brother and Sister (ha ha ha...maybe next year). The Easter bunny definitely hid the eggs in harder places this year though. We were talking to our neighbors when the Easter bunny hid the eggs (or so Wally thinks). After we were done talking to them, Wally jumped back on his bike. When he got in front of our house, he saw an egg and jumped off his bike. We told him he couldn't leave his bike in the road like that, so he ran to his bike, picked the thing up (I'm sure not an easy task when the bike is a big as he is), and waddled with it to the curb so he could hunt for the eggs. I wish I had gotten that on camera because it doesn't sound nearly as cute as it was. Being the only kid looking for the eggs, he made out pretty well.

Despite all of the "stuff" that goes with Easter, Wally still managed to remember what Easter means. I was told that on Palm Sunday the youth director asked Wally how he was, and he responded, "You should be sad because Jesus is going to die soon." Then on Easter during the children's sermon, the kids were asked what they are celebrating on Easter. Wally immediately piped in "Jesus is coming back to life!" But, since he has a hard time with his "L" sounds, it sounded like Jesus was coming back to his wife. That got a few giggles from the congregation.

How did the Easter bunny know Wally loves jelly beans?

If anyone is still unsure, Wally is full of love and is not shy about sharing it. At times during church, Wally gets over-powered by the need to kiss and just attacks Joel or I with a billion kisses. This batch that Joel got was nothing. Note that Joel is asking for a napkin because Wally had just finished eating some of his Easter candy and was wearing it all over his face.

A big holiday meal isn't the same when it is just the 3 of us, but I still try. This year, we had ham, cheesy peas, cheesy potatoes, marshmallow fruit salad, and fresh bread. Not so healthy, but delicious! The Easter tree bloomed perfectly! During the Easter egg hunt, we found 4 real eggs in one of the trees in our back yard. We figured out that these were cardinal eggs.

About a week later, we found that 3 of the eggs had hatched really ugly birds! It was fun to see since we've been watching the eagles. Too bad the momma had built the nest right at nose level for the dogs. The next day, we found the nest tipped and no birds or eggs to be found. "Maybe the mommy bird carried the babies to a new nest away from Moose and Daisy." Maybe, Wally, maybe.