Our Easter Weekend post #1

Wow! We had a busy, busy weekend! There were so many things that we did and I took so many pictures, that I'm going to have to break it up into a few different posts. I really can't believe we crammed so much into just two days.

We started the weekend off by getting up "early" on Saturday morning-later than we get up during the week, but early compared to our usual time on the weekend. We had planned to leave the house by 9 and be in McAlester by noon. Notsomuch. We ended up actually leaving here around 10:30. Good thing we didn't have any definite plans for the day. Daniel took vacation days on Monday and Tuesday of this week so that he could stay and "get some work done for our move"-translation: go Turkey hunting on Tuesday. I drove the van and he drove his jeep-with all of the kids! Hooray! I had a pretty quiet drive down.

When we got there, Daniel took the kids with him to get a haircut for Landon and to get some lunch. My mom and I went and looked at headstones for my dad, went to lunch, and then went to the cemetery. I never realized how many different choices there were! We didn't pick anything for sure, but got a lot of ideas about what we did and didn't like. The place is only open during the week, so she is going to go down and order something without me.

I mentioned before in this post that my kids take turns being Grandma Debbie's "helper" in the kitchen each time we visit. Well, this time it was Cheyenne's turn. She donned her Hannah Montana apron and cooked up a yummy dinner. She made chicken and noodles, mashed potatoes, pineapples, chicken strips (okay, we bought those but it counts), cottage cheese, ranch style beans, and some other stuff (we like variety). She did a great job!

Here she is trying to get the ranch style beans open with a manual can opener.

It was a pretty tough can. :)

She finally had to ask the expert.

Cooking is very serious business.

While Cheyenne and Grandma Debbie were cooking, Sierra was busy in the playroom going through some of my old stuff. Look at what she found! Can anyone name that New Kid on the Block?

Once things were all cleaned up from dinner, we dyed eggs.

They are watching the color tablets dissolve in the vinegar. Pretty cool!

Finally getting the eggs in the dye.

(Can I just be honest and say that I HATE it when the kids dye eggs? It makes me a nervous wreck. First, there is the dye that I'm afraid is going to get spilled and stain something it shoudn't. Then, there are the eggs that get notsogently dropped in the dye and crack. And trying to keep track of who's eggs are who's and how many they each have done. Oh, and I can't forget the wiping of the dyed hands on their clothes. Ugh! Maybe it's because I was the only child, but I remember egg drying being much calmer than it is with my children.)

Anyway, the kids dyed eggs and had a good time. Landon, of course, was the first one finished. All he really wanted to do was eat them anyway. That boy loved boiled eggs!

I guess doing weird things with your mouth makes it easier to get the eggs out of the dye.

Cheyenne was still dying her eggs when Landon moved on to eating his.

The kids stayed up pretty late-after 11:00 I think. It's always takes a while to get everyone settled on where they are going to sleep. Landon ended up deciding to sleep on the floor next to the couch where I was going to sleep (I could sleep in the spare bedroom, but I prefer the couch). Usually it's pretty hard to get him to settle down and go to sleep at Grandma's house, but he was so tired from all the fun of the day that he was out within five minutes of lying down. Poor kid!