Pre-Easter weekend with kids, a puppy and eggs!

Hope you had a Happy, Blessed Easter! Below you can see samples of the kids fine work dying Easter eggs.

John and Lindsey arrived late Thursday evening with their new baby "Amadeus" an adorable black lab (lots of pictures on their blog). His last time with other puppies was his litter mates and he hadn't been around little kids at all. Wellllll, he has been broken in now!! Below are some shots of Amadeus playing with Packer & Dexter. Dexter was thrilled to have someone his own size - we haven't had the heart to tell him the next time he sees Amadeus there will be a big difference in size! We were impressed with how well Amadeus rolled with the punches.

I love Dexter's ears in this picture.You can get a quick glimpse of a 'grown-up' Amadeus in the background on this picture - what a handsome guy!

Smokey just finds the whole 'dog thing' a bit much . . . .

Here you can see an official O'Donnell weekend getting under way (the Mazda felt very important in this line up).

Neal's birthday was the following Monday so we had an impromptu birthday party Saturday night. Theresa found a wonderful cake 'Handy Manny' - I think Handy Manny has taken over Bob the Builder's position.

Neal reviews all his birthday cards

Sunday morning all the Moms gathered materials and the egg decorating began! Some of the Dads headed out to hide eggs for the hunt. We explained that since we were a week early we would be hiding the eggs instead of the Easter bunny!

Katie is checking her colors.

Steph helping Audrey & Seth with their creations - Seth and Noah did some awesome camouflage while the girls all did some pretty glitter eggs.

Good thing the dining room is the size it is!

Showing off the finished products!

Audrey

Brooke

Madison

Here the troops are assembled for their Easter egg hunt. Some were concerned enough to don their helmets.

Little people (Madison, Brooke, Katie & Caleb) hunted their eggs in the front yard while Audrey, Seth & Noah had to work a little harder in the side and back yards.

Wild child Seth with part of his haul . . .

Audrey working over the parking lot

Noah after scouring under the pine trees in back

Ready? Here's an 'artistic' shot - aren't you impressed?

I love this shot of Brooke, Madison and Katie - they look sweeter than any Easter candy.

After the hunt everyone opened their eggs and ziplocked their candy.

I have a set of Resurrection Easter Eggs with each one holding a token of various parts of the Easter story (i.e. nail, palm leaf, stone). Lindsey held an little discussion of the real reason we celebrate Easter. All the kids did great but Seth showed he has really been listening in church.

Miss Katie - dressed in pink, check / have pink Barbie case, check - yep she's a girl!

So this is Nana's laundry room??

The quad-runner is gone so we resorted to tractor rides.

Ryan was showing he can still do backbends and the kids decided he made a pretty good arch to scramble under.

The arch, however, managed to trap Seth - everyone got a laugh.

Lindsey & John headed home Wednesday morning with a very tired, but happy, puppy. Thursday morning I headed to St. Joe so Katie could attend her Easter party. Here Caleb hung out with me in the hallway waiting for the festivities to begin.

This is why chiropractors are a mother's best friend - not necessarily in your twenties or thirties but eventually . . . .

I love the pigtails bouncing in this video. As you can see the eggs were cleverly hidden by the sixth graders. Interestingly enough some of the eggs had been relieved of the candy - hmmmmm!

Katie getting ready for the balance beam

Unfortunately the day ended with both Katie & Caleb losing everything they had eaten in a year at a local restaurant. We were assisted by a waitress who, no doubt, immediately went out and had her 'tubes tied'. Both kids were hit with a terrible flu bug and pulled Joy down with them. Fortunately by Saturday everyone was functioning again and actually eating by Sunday - so it's all good!