It's an Instagram-ish Easter!

I apologize in advance. Picasa has now added a ton of Instagram-like picture editing features. So ... I had way too much fun with the pictures from Easter this year. I promise, I will calm down with the editing in the future, but for now, you will have to suffer through my "creative" pictures.


Easter has many meanings for different people. The Easter Bunny. Jesus. Candy. Church. Egg Hunts.

Say what you will about the commercialization of holidays, in our house, it's more like the familiazation. You see, in our house, the prevailing theme of Easter is "Cousin Penelope Coming to Town!"

For the past five years, the Strand family has made the trek down from Minnesota to Kansas to spend Easter weekend with us. Laura is my cousin, and her daughter Penelope is aged exactly between Molly and Charlotte.  Molly and Charlotte have no first cousins, so I am thrilled they have a second cousin (a girl cousin, no less!) who is so close in age to keep the familial connection alive.

Laura, Chris and Penelope drove down on Thursday night, so Friday morning my girls got to wake up to the excitement of Penelope being in their house. Unfortunately, at the beginning of the school year, I had signed up to help at Molly's preschool Easter party. And, it turned out to be Friday morning. So, Molly and I said hello to Penelope then trotted off to preschool. (The party was a success, fyi, even if my genius Pinterest treat idea had been stolen the day before by Jenna's mom for her birthday treat!)

Friday afternoon the girls played and sort of took naps. Then, Laura and I bolted for a kid-free, mom's night out to have drinks and watch The Hunger Games. I'm not sure what Laura liked more, the kid-free aspect, the movie, or the leather reclining seats and wait-staff food service during the movie. We might be able to convince her to come down more often just to go to the theater and see a movie!

Saturday morning, we signed up to run in a local 5K Easter Egg Run. It was our friend Chris's first 5K, so we wanted to cheer him on, too. (A different Chris than Laura's husband, though.) Now, keep in mind that it has been in the 70s and 80s for the past month. I have been running in shorts and tank tops. Then, Saturday morning rolls around with a chance of rain and a gloomy 50 degrees. Not exactly fun "fun run" weather, but Molly was super excited about doing the kids' "Lil' Bunny Fun Run," so we all piled in the cars and drove to the race.

Walking the 5K.

And, they're off! Molly looks like a speed demon.

Penelope said, "I was fast!"

Two happy girls at the finish line.

Because Cory's favorite thing to do is cram as much as possible into every spare second, he thought it would be a great idea to plan a giant Easter Egg Hunt at our house for Saturday afternoon. He promised he would do all the work for it, so I agreed. All the girls were excited because we had bounce houses and tons of friends to play with.

Penelope and Molly with the Peep Rice Krispie Nests.

Charlotte was pretty sure her basket was a purse.

Molly with her eggs.

Penelope was happy with her eggs, too!

Charlotte, aka "little stinker"

Cory roasting some peeps on the fire to make peep s'mores. They were delicious.

The Hunt.

Cutie McGee.

The pot-luck dinner.

Cousins and friends!

After the Saturday activities, we were all exhausted. We got up early to see what the Easter Bunny had left, then headed to church, then over to Gigi and Papa's house for Easter lunch and dyeing eggs.

Girls dyeing eggs.

The annual Easter picture of all the ladies.

After all those crazy activities, the Strands headed back to Minnesota. We were sad to see them go, but had such a good time while they were here. And, well, they just had better count on this being a forever tradition, because to my girls, Easter will always be associated with Penelope!