Easter Morning At Our House

 Well, here are some Easter pics.  It's another quasi-religious holiday that I wasn't thrilled about being involved with this year.  I struggle with the idea of filling young, forming minds with horrific notions about some religion that you decided for them.  I want my kids to use their minds and form decisions on their own, with what feels right and comfortable TO THEM, not what feels right and comfortable to me.  I was raised in a faith that was detrimental in so many ways(as they all are) and I refuse to do the same to them. So instead of worrying about all that other stupid crap about the holiday, I embraced the damn Easter Bunny.  I mean if we are believing in things we have never seen or have any actual evidence of, I'm going to promote the cute, fun fairy tale about a nice bunny that brings me eggs filled with yummy candy and fun stuff rather than the one that threatens me if I don't worship him in whatever wacko way he chooses, I am doomed to hell.  What a downer, lol, who would want to hang out with that guy, hah!!

 I went to four different Dollar Generals in the surrounding area to find all these Easter Baskets for just $5 each!  Lol!  I was determined.  I filled em full of a bunch of crap (cool adult coloring books, memory books, reading books, toys, candy, stickers, oh and EGGS) and then we.....Jeremy and I....erm, the EASTER BUNNY, hopped all through the house and hid the baskets.  I do love how every Easter morning the kids wake us up with whose baskets they have already found and those that they just can't seem to find!  There is a lot of teamwork between the kids Easter morning and they are all genuinely nice and excited to help each other find baskets and see who got what. 

 Well my teenagers are starting to not have quite the excitement they had in previous years, LOL!  And that's fine with me.  I remember being that age. and I love having a little of the pressure relieved of being "on" for the holiday, when you don't have to necessarily "hide" things form them or create some kind of perfect thing for them.  

 Eden got Piggy Paint in her basket.  It is safe, non-toxic nail polish for little girls that says it is as safe as mud???? Hmmm, not sure what that means, but whatever, it sounds good! :)

 A lot of my kids and myself are getting into the adult coloring books recently.  I bought a set of really nice professional colored pencils and we all just sit and color together sometimes.  

 Don't mind all the pizza boxes, we had Trapp Easter at our house this year and Nicci, Trey, Alina, Will, and Sam stayed later into the evening, the day before Easter.  For supper we had Will, Tristan, and Cedric drive to Keokuk to get pizza for us.  

 I don't know how I didn't snap any pics at all of Cedric, what the heck!?!?!? 

We all got ready for the day and went to Kelley Family Easter first, then to another Trapp Easter and Vicki and Dan's house for supper, both of which will be in a different post. I have to say though, pretty dang good Easter this year even with my recent "Faith Crisis".  

Tidbit

I am seriously annoyed with myself and what a horrendous job I have done keeping up with this blog for the past year or so.  I AM going to do better.  I also have slacked on printing the blog books.  That will happen too.  The past year has been different for me in so many ways. There has been a lot of discovery, learning, growth, introspective, and change in all areas of my life. I am going to try to keep a goal of posting one post a day to try to catch myself up a bit.

Yesterday I posted these pictures on Facebook of all the kids at Kelley Family Easter.  Grandma and Grandpa Kelley had gotten these super cute Minnie Mouse outfits for Eden and Viv for Christmas.  They hadn't had a chance to wear them yet and I thought, rather than get new Easter dresses, they could wear these and be freaking adorable!  And adorable they were!  Oh my goodness, I these two girls are just too much cute!

 My boys have totally made my life complete by giving me an awesome photo of ALL of them STANDING STILL, LOOKING AT THE CAMERA, SMILING, AND NOT THROWING SOME KIND OF FIT!!!!  I am in heaven.  I love the rainbow shirts I made them wear too, lol!

 

Beggar's Night 2015

Eden dressed as her own version of Anna from the movie, Frozen.

Cedric dressed himself as a soldier.  We bought him some khaki pants and a camo thermal shirt and he found the rest of the stuff himself. 

 This time of year is always super busy but, adding my own business to mix has been new with both good and bad results, lol!  I am definitely learning a ton and trying to adjust where necessary but, whew!  Anyway, so Halloween kinda snuck up on us this year....I mean we knew it was coming but, we were dealing with other stuff first and then all of a sudden the days to actually dress up were right around the corner(the next day, lol) and I was making a mad dash to the store to try and get last minute costumes.  So, this year I had six kids dress up.  Tristan has reached the age where he didn't want to and he decided to stay at our house and pass out candy instead, which was fine with me because I always want to pass out candy at our house but, never get to. That was one of the itty bitty, teeny tiny good things about living in Carthage was that we would do Beggar's Night in Nauvoo and then on Halloween, I could pass out candy in Carthage and some of the kids would trick or treat Carthage too. Anyway, I digress, so....Liam wanted to be a dementor from Harry Potter but, at the last minute all I could find was that spooky looking thing he is wearing(I can't remember what it was actually called, lol) and he was fine and dandy with it! Yay! Asher wanted to be a ninja again.  But, not the same ninja as last year(that would be too easy....and free), so he was a different ninja this year.  Cullen wanted to be a soldier as well.  Luckily, for his recent birthday he got a dress up army play set! We just bought some cheap camo pants and camo long sleeve shirt and used the play set for the rest.  

Eden wanted to be Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony.  I searched high and low.  Couldn't find ANY My Little Pony costumes anywhere.(I had one in my Amazon shopping cart for at least two weeks ahead of time because I put in it there right after I ordered Viv's costume.  Do you think I could click ONE LITTLE BUTTON to order it in time.  Nope.) So, I looked for a different costume she might like and they were all like $40 or more.  Stupid.  I decided to look in the little girls dress up section in the toy section of Walmart while I was there.  I found a cardboard decorated treasure chest with two Anna and Elsa dress up costumes with some jewelry, hair stuff, and stickers or something.  It was on clearance for $20!  The costumes and the cardboard treasure chest were both cheaply made but, I thought we could work with what was in it.  I was so dang worried that Eden would not want anything to do with it because she had been dead set on being Twilight Sparkle.  Too my delight, she LOVED it!! She had zero issues with being Anna or Elsa (it took her a few minutes to decide but, she chose Anna, which I thought was appropriate because they look similar.) She was obsessed with carrying the treasure chest around for the next week, lol! 

Vivianne was Pinky Winky the Monster.  She was adorable.  When it came in the mail, it was just me and her home.  I took it out of the shipping packaging and showed her the costume still in the package and she immediately wanted to hold it.  I took it out and she held on to my shoulder and lifted her foot up like she wanted to get dressed!! :)  So, we put it on her right then and there and she LOVED it!! She wanted to wear it around all the time.  I took a quick picture and video to send to Jeremy and we took it off to not get it too dirty before Halloween but, she still wore it a few times before Halloween anyway, lol!  Anytime she sees it, she wants to put it on.  I just put it in the Halloween tote to store though...so no more, I guess. 

 

 We decided to try trick or treating in Bluff Woods this year, since it is where we live, could walk, and we had heard that Bluff Woods was THE place to trick or treat, lol!  And it was!! We only did a small part of it too.  We knew that Grandma Kelley had food and treats at her house so we thought we would finish up in town and start in Bluff Woods.

 All the kids were smitten with Vivianne as usual.  She is a super lucky girl to have so many people dote all over her, all the time!  

 Eden picked out everything for her costume.  She is freaking awesome.  She had on fleece lined black leggings, a purple shirt, her Anna dress, purple socks, pink shoes, her fleece winter hat, and of course she can't go anywhere without her backpack loaded to the brim. 

All the kids were super excited and cute when the went to the doors.  At first Eden was annoyed and yelled at people to give her the candy.  Once she saw how it worked, she started saying "Trick or Treat" and " Please and Thank you".  She was so thrilled every time she got something!  

 One house gave out bags of candy AND these cute little pumpkin flashlights.  Asher told the lady that hers was the best house ever.  LOL! She didn't give one to Viv, which I understand but, Vivi was really sad she didn't have one to hold on to.  

After trick or treating in Bluff Woods for a bit, we loaded everyone up and went to town to trick or treat.  After that the whole family kinda hung out at Grandma Kelley's house, ate yummy food, and chatted with everyone.  Then we all came home and crashed.  Trick or treating was a success and actually really, really fun this year!!! YAY!!

Valentine's Dance

Cedric wanted to go to the middle school Valentine's dance.  He wanted to dress up even though other kids had told him that they were just gonna wear jeans or whatever.  So, he called Grandma Trapp and made sure to get his suit ahead of time(mostly, lol).  He totally dressed himself.  I LOVE it!  He has a style all his own and knows just how to make things look good!  He went to the dance and had a great time!

Valentines Surprise

It was Friday the 13th.  The kids were off of school and I was having a pretty crappy day.  Suddenly the doorbell rang! Gah!  Who the heck could be here!?!?  I was in lounge clothes and the kids were still running around in pajamas.  Eden ran for the door and then all the others followed so I HAD to get the door.  I opened it and it was a delivery guy with flowers!!  He had two bouquets in his hands(which I was trying to wrap my head around....why were there two?) and I took them and said thank you and he said he had another in the car! What?!  Then I realized that the smaller two were for the girls.  Jeremy had flowers delivered for all three of his girls on Valentine's Day.  It was so cute and the flowers were so pretty.  Eden was excited and I tried to show her how to smell the flowers but, I don't think she wanted to do that again, lol!  A few times a day she walks up to her flowers and says" My Eden flowers."  She liked her strawberry cream filled chocolate heart too!  He had picked out a dozen roses for me and a pink rose for Eden and a purple rose for Vivianne.  He really is thoughtful and cute!  I was happy.