"It's Dirty, But Not Cracked!"

The Easter Bunny is ruthless at our house.  He hides eggs in the craziest places.  Like this year:

 A climbing a tree to get an egg in our old backyard, 2003

This is not our first Easter here; we've come down on other years.  Like the year we decided NO CANDY and filled plastic eggs with dried fruit, mixed nuts, and beef jerky.

 IJ and S, here, 2007

Sweet Baby E, 2007

And the year I decided NO COMMERCIAL EASTER and M and A filled plastic eggs with coins for IJ while the rest of the kids stayed at the old home with me and had no idea it was Easter.

So we have no set Easter tradition.  I do always remind them what Easter is for and read from our childrens Bible.  And I do always fight the Easter Bunny and try to get away with no candy and no plastic eggs.  But I almost never win.  So last night I went out at 6:30 PM to buy more eggs and candy (and a ham for Grandad) so IJ could have one more year of magic before he stops believing.  And I tell you, the night before Easter is the worst time to shop for candy!  I went to three stores to find two bags of jelly beans and some chocolate eggs.

This morning M had to sneak out of the house to hide eggs.  By the time he came back in, the crows were very interested in the tasty snacks that had been left out.  The dog was too.

The early bird gets the worm, but the last kid up stays warm...

This one is still wearing her pajamas!

But she found a lot of eggs her brothers ran right by...

"Hey, what's going on?"

It didn't take long for the kids to get sick of candy and start in on the grapes...  And I got a big hug from my sweetheart thanking me for putting a bunch of extra work into childhood memories...

...speaking of memories:

L and IJ, Easter 2003

Our Little Family 2003