Spring Celebration, Part 1

This year Dave and I decided to try something new. Easter is coming up, as you probably know, and we do want our children to have the the fun of things that our secular American culture associates with Easter--eggs, chicks, flowers, candy and all of that spring-like sweetness. On the other hand, and much more importantly, we want to make sure that our family's Easter Sunday is truly a celebration of Jesus Christ and His glorious resurrection. So, after much discussion, we decided to take the more spring-related stuff and do it on a separate day, thereby creating... a Spring Celebration! (This really was not our idea, by the way. We got a lot of it from the Mahaneys.)

We chose the Monday (Dave's day off) closest to the first day of spring. In case it's unclear, that was this past Monday, March 17th. Which also happened to be St. Patrick's Day. But being neither Irish nor Catholic and therefore having no plans to honor good ol' St. Patty, we overruled shamrocks and leprachauns in favor of bunnies.

So it is now my joy to present to you... a photographic tour of the Wilcox Family's First Spring Celebration! (Photographic might be an overstatement, since that would seem to imply that I consider myself a photographer. And I don't. I'm more of a snapshotter. But anyway.)

First we had breakfast. And what better way to begin a Spring Celebration than with oh-so-nourishing Cinnabunnies?

(It's a bunny made out of two Pillsbury cinnamon rolls. And assorted other ingredients for decoration.)

Most people like to eat the cherry-noses off first, it seems.


This was absolutely the most sugary and least healthy breakfast of Meg's life to date.

Yes, those are Froot Loops. Having been raised by Nancy Nalle, I shudder at the mere thought of this disgusting "cereal," but to other people (like that guy I married) it's a real treat. Meg seemed to like it too.

Froot Loops Man himself, looking bright-eyes and bushy-tailed. (And who wouldn't, in the midst of such a sugar overload?)


After breakfast, Meg wanted to hold her brother. And Matthew wanted to touch her face and pull her hair.


Fast forward a few hours to egg-dyeing time at Nana's house. After explaining to Meg that the little dye tablets were not to eat and consoling her for this immense disappointment with something she could eat (grapes), we got set up for the dyeing.


Then Daddy explained the process.


Cubby watched and my mom took pictures while...


we got started.










Meg was terribly excited by this most unusual event.


"Are you sure I'm not allowed to drink this fantastic looking stuff?"


Dyeing eggs with a two-year old does result in a little bit of splashing... but the clean-up is really rather lovely.


After we finished the eggs, it was time for lunch. When asked if she would like soup for her luncheon, Meg replied, "No. Eggs?" Quite naturally, she assumed that she would be able to sample her own handiwork immediately. So immediately, in fact, that she didn't want to wait for the peeling...


"Hmm... seems a little, uh, crunchy."


Watching Mommy peel...


Her first taste of hard-boiled egg in a long time...

did not go over well.

Matthew apparently agreed with her assessment.


Speaking of Matthew, here he is with his mommy (that's me) and my mother's beanstalk--um, I mean, amaryllis. My sister Jacque gave it to her last year and it didn't bloom. This year, it has apparently decided to make up for last year's dormancy by not only preparing to bloom, but by being the tallest amaryllis ever. So there. We took this picture with the plant next to the people so that Jacque could gauge exactly how tall this thing now is.


OK, so this concludes the first half of our day. My next post will cover the afternoon, a.k.a., The Egg Hunt and The Second Sugar Overload. Fun, fun, fun! Stay tuned...