Easter in a thousand pictures

Ooofh. That is the sound of me collapsing on the couch and not moving. (Ok, well, actually I do have to get up to switch the laundry. Monday is laundry day in our house.) But, today we are spending our day getting back to our normal schedule and recovering from the oh-so-much-fun annual Strand-Lafferty Easter weekend.

So, for the past five years, my cousin Laura and her husband and daughter have been coming down to spend Easter with us. Five years. I can't even believe it's been that long. The tradition can't be broken because my girls now completely associate Easter with Penny coming to town. It's permanently locked in. (Hear that, Laura?)

As always, we had a great time, the girls had a great time, and we are already making plans for next year. The problem is, as is usually the case, fitting everything into three short days.

They got here late on Thursday night. We're talking so late that I was already in bed, and I made Cory wait up for them. Then, on Friday morning, I drag poor Laura with me to Bar Method class. And, to be fair to myself, she did say she wanted to try it. Though, I'm not sure she was thrilled that she made that comment. Especially during the class. She told me that she thought there were going to be more ballet-esque moves. Whoops. Not so much.

So, after I completely tire Laura's legs out, we decided to drag the whole family down to the Nelson-Atkins Museum. A friend of mine had told me about this scavenger hunt for children that you can print off the internet and take with you. It has pictures of different things (ie. cat, wagon, lobster, angel) that the kids can cross off as they find them in different paintings throughout the museum. I wasn't sure how it was going to go, but it ended up completely entertaining and engrossing the girls. They were totally invested in finding all the items to cross off. We started getting into it, too. But, alas, we ended the day without ever finding the damn lobster!

We decided to use some of our Bar expertise to emulate the headless statue. Jeans were a bit of a hindrance.

Working on the scavenger hunt. I believe this may have been around the time that Molly asked Laura why angels don't have to wear clothes, after seeing so many naked angels in paintings. Oh, kids. ;)

We had a really yummy lunch in the cafe in the museum.

Then, we headed outside to enjoy the absolutely gorgeous weather. It has not been warm here for spring at all. In fact, it snowed 8 inches a mere 5 days prior to this. So, we were definitely ready to enjoy the outside. The tops of my feet, however, were not. They got absolutely burned to a crisp. Darn paleness.

Family picture in front of the Nelson.

Whee!!!!

Pensively thinking about life and art.

Three giggly girls.

Laura had seen something about the giant shuttlecock sculptures months and months ago, so we took pictures in front of them.

Just cute.

Saturday morning, we had big plans to all walk or run in the Easter Egg 5K and Lil' Bunny Fun Run. Of course, I should've known that the weather couldn't be perfect all weekend. We got all dressed, then walked outside and realized it was raining. Whoops. Laura ended up staying with the girls in the car while Cory, Chris, my dad and I ran in the 5K. When we finished running, it had stopped raining, so we brought the girls over to do the kids' run.

All the runners, including Charlotte's back. Chris ran his very first 5K at this race and did awesome!

Charlotte heading toward the finish line of the 3-year-old heat.

Molly crossing the finish in her heat. Both feet in the air!

The three little bunny fun runners.

Molly and Penelope with the Easter Bunny! Charlotte refused to go near him.

Yes, I'm a dork. But, I've never gotten 1st place in my age group before. And, 3rd overall female finisher. I was really excited. So, I was acting like a dork. 

With Laura and a couple photo bombers.

Next up on the big day of activities was the big Easter Egg hunt at our house. I don't think people believed me when I said that I had absolutely nothing to do with this event. But, it is true. It is ALL Cory. I didn't even know who he was inviting. Heck, I wasn't even on the email he sent out. So, all credit and blame can be placed squarely on his shoulders for how it turned out. We had been worrying about the weather for the hunt (especially after that snow storm last weekend), but it could not have been better. It was absolutely beautiful.

All the kids lined up for the hunt.

Molly on the hunt.

Charlotte with her eggs!

Laura and I actually got quite a few good pictures together this weekend. Yay, us!

Molly and Penelope.

Ella, Charlotte, Molly and Penelope.

Kay, Anne and me.

Two Amys.

Laura, me and Sarah.

The next day was Easter. The girls got up, checked out their Easter baskets, then we dressed up and headed to church. After church, we ate lunch at First Watch and took a couple pictures in the park before the Strands had to head back on the road. We did discover a fail of the weekend. We have dyed eggs at my mom's house in previous years, but she couldn't have people over because of construction going on, so we just didn't think about dyeing eggs. Apparently, it was a very big mistake because Molly was a little devastated. Next year, we will be dyeing eggs.

Penelope, Molly, Charlotte and Jake in front of the beautiful Easter flowers.

One of my new favorite pictures.

A picture of all us girls at the park.

Family picture in the park in our Easter best. Yes, I have a weird stance going on.

Oh my goodness, could they be a cuter family?

Penelope had just fallen, so this was the best we could do for a horizontal picture of the girls. 

So, we are all slowly working on recovering from the weekend. It was just too much excitement and happiness for Molly to process. She fell asleep last night sobbing, "I miss Penelope. I miss Penelope. I miss Penelope." Today, she asked Charlotte why she wasn't crying about missing Penelope. Geez.

But, in spite of the required recovery time, and crying jags about missing Penelope, I wouldn't trade our annual Easter visit for the world. It is helping to create an awesome bond between our three girls. In fact, I'm pretty sure they have seen each other more in their short lives than Laura and I saw each other in our entire growing up. It's awesome to see. Plus, it helps that Laura and I kinda like each other, too. :)