Ten-on-Ten ~ April

I'm participating in the 10-on-10 this month, here's our day:

Easter Dinner

This year, we celebrated Easter with the Hamilton/Kneeling side.

I love having cousins so close to Parker's age.  Not only do they play together great, no one bats an eyelash when I suggest that we eat "lunch" at 4pm.

We had 11 adults and three toddlers, so we were pretty cosy around the dinner table, but it was a great time.

We didn't traditionally have Easter with the Kneeling side, usually we were with my Mom's family.  Easter with Dad's family is a new tradition we've started in adulthood, it's great to have a chance to see our cousins more than just Christmas Eve.

The Kneeling tradition for Easter dinner is salmon, corn casserole, and ambrosia cake.  I hate ham, so this seemed like a good menu for us as well.  Keith & Parker grilled up two beautiful salmon fillets.

Once the meal was over, all the little ones climbed into Cathee & Auntie Rosemary's laps for story time.

Parker & Fiona went for Cousin Cathee, while Cousin Sarah went for her Grandma Rosemary.

After lunch, Parker taught his cousins how to play "Ashy, Ashy" (also known as ring-around-the-rosie for those of us over two).

Parker LOVES "Ashy, Ashy" and will run around the house forever yelling: "Ashy, Ashy, Ashy, DOWN!"  It was adorable watching each of them chase after the other two, trying to hold hands & walk around in a circle.

Easter Egg Hunt

Easter brought around one busy weekend!  We spent Saturday morning getting ready for Easter Lunch, and Saturday afternoon at church preparing for the Easter service.  This is one of the down-falls of having Church-in-a-gym, you have to build the church every week.  Fortunately, for Easter, we were able to set-up Saturday afternoon (unfortunately, it was the most beautiful afternoon of the year so far, but it was worth it).  Then I was back at the crack-of-dawn (at least it felt that way) to get the coffee started & all the food out.  We had a huge turn-out and a great Easter Sunday!

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After the service, they had an Easter Egg hunt out on the football field beside the church.  Last year we skipped it, we weren't interested in having Parker crawl through the mud in the freezing cold & rain.  This year it was beautiful!

They had three hunts, one for the toddlers, one for the pre-schoolers, and one for the elementary schoolers.  Or, at least, that was the plan.  Once they opened the gates, all-out chaos ensued.

Parker didn't really catch-on to what was happening at first.  We were trying to get him to find the "balls", but there was a little too much going on.

But, eventually, he started to get the picture.  Of course, by that time, all the toddler eggs were gone, so we joined the pre-schooler hunt.

And, before you know it, Parker had turned into a greedy-egg-hoarder, just like all the other kids.

Of course, he has no idea that they contain candy, he just thinks they are balls.  And that's what he will continue to think.

This is Parker's new friend Zoey.  Zoey is about a month younger than Parker.

After all the eggs were gone, Parker spied some dandelions on the far side of the field and had to check them out, just to be sure there weren't more "balls" over there.  Keith had to lure him back by holding an egg in front of him and walking back to the field.

Not too bad for our boy's first egg hunt.

Parker's activities

Parker is growing and learning new things at such a rate, it's a little striking to his Mama to still calls him her "baby".

Parker loves to sit & read books.  Never for very long at a time, and I think he misses most of the story, since he turns 2-5 pages at a time, but he's a good little speed-reader (Auntie Denise should be proud).

When we came home from Costco the other day, he helped me bring in the groceries.  The first thing I put away went on Keith's workbench in the garage, so Parker wanted to put everything away there.  Which is why Keith still has a bottle of Claritin on this work bench.

Of course, I couldn't get a photo of it, but Parker carried in a giant bag of walnuts from the car.  It was pretty cute, this little guy wandering around clutching a bag of nuts almost as big as him to his chest.

Parker is also learning to bake.  This week he helped me make biscuits & cornbread.  He loved dumping in the ingredients and mixing the batter.  Daddy wasn't so excited about the flour he had to clean off of everything, but mess is a part of learning.

And, Parker's learning how to clean-up, here he's wiping off the counters after we made the cornbread.

Parker got a new step stool at Ikea on Friday, so now he can see everything that's going on in the kitchen. 

He also insisted on eating his snack at the kitchen counter.

Then, we colored.  Like his vampire drool?  One side is pink marker, the other chocolate from his trail mix.  This guy has inherited his Daddy's addiction to trail mix.  I have to explain to him every morning that we don't eat trail mix for breakfast.

All these new activities make for one sleepy boy!  I was too slow getting the camera, but Parker was originally sleeping with his arms wrapped around his giraffe.  He really is the cutest thing ever!

A few random shots

Parker & Keith were playing out in the front yard.  I tried to get some shots of the two of them, but none came out that great.  However, as soon as Parker realized what I was doing, he turned & yelled "Cheese!"

Parker waiting for Daddy to come home: 

Parker LOVES our tablet.  He especially loves making videos of himself and then watching them.  But here, he's watching the video our church made encouraging people to ride the shuttle.  Back when we attended the Greenlake campus, we LOVED the shuttle, but apparently we are in the minority, everyone else seems to prefer to fight over the five legal parking spaces around the church.

Both of my boys got their hair cut this weekend.  Keith probably got the better cut, but Parker's was free (since I did it).