Hippity Hoppity Easter's on the Way!

Is that the Easter Bunny???

No, silly, that's the Easter Boxer!

Yes, any holiday where we can dress Blake up is just better.

We journeyed to Iowa on Thursday to spend Easter with 'Ice Iowa'. He greeted Sasha with a bowl full of ice cream which, of course, is just what Sasha has been talking about all week.

It was a beautiful day in Illinois - sunny and 50 degrees. A quick trip around our yard witnessed our tulips pushing their way through the ground. We planted over 700 bulbs so they should be glorious this year. They are every year. Unfortunately, on Friday, we received 11 inches while we were gone. I've let my friends know that I would appreciate them thawing everything out before we come back. Ugh .. I'm so sick of snow at this point. I love spring. It is absolutely my favorite time of the year and it shouldn't be shortened by yet MORE snow.

Saturday was spent preparing for the big bunny himself. What better way to spend the afternoon than painting Easter eggs? Sasha was so excited about the project. Even Ice Iowa leant a hand to the artistic endeavors. And, if you can believe this, Nathan actually attempted to create marbelized eggs which involved many different dyes, a plastic glove and a funky looking tray. We've decided that, as nice as the eggs looked on the box, these are not going to become part of our Easter tradition.

Saturday evening, we dined out at the Chinese buffet located close to Dad's house. Now, we've all been to 'cheap Chinese buffets'. This was not one of 'those' buffets. This buffet had a large central section with six different long buffets in the middle heaped with every kind of Asian food you could imagine. It also had a sushi bar, a mongolian barbecue (where you bring up a bowl of stuff and they cook it for you) and an ice cream dispenser along the side of the room. Pretty impressive. And yes, it was very affordable and very busy. It seemed that everyone in Davenport was there to dine on the feast. Some of the folks looked more 'colorful' than others.

We had the good fortune to catch up with Waltraud, a long time friend of the family. Waltraud, who is German by birth, is such an interesting person. Her husband, Dieter, passed away a couple of years ago and they, as a couple, had always impressed me with their ability to live life to its very fullest. Waltraud has continued that passion. Hearing her schedule - up at dawn to walk, go to the care center to visit people and deliver flowers, sing in a choir, take three children of her doctor to the children's museum and library then go to dinner - was incredible. Wow. What an amazing woman! We often times find it difficult to get her on the phone and, after hearing her typical schedule, we now understand why! We will try email in the future.

When Mom was alive, she had always hoped that Waltraud would feel a part of our family. Waltraud presented Sasha with a lovely gift bag with two cars that speed around the room, candy and a cool little pad that you can draw on. Such a nice gift and the cars helped keep Sasha busy. We hope that Waltraud will feel welcome in our family. After spending 18 months without any family, isn't it nice for Sasha to have so many people that care about him.

Sasha had a late night and had some trouble getting to sleep (I think the excitement of the big bunny coming to visit was too much for him). By 10 p.m., I had shared with him my concern that perhaps the Easter Bunny had already been to our neighborhood and had discovered that he was still awake and had to pass on Ice Iowa's house. Wouldn't that be tragic. Sasha finally went to sleep and indeed the Easter Bunny came.

Easter morning the hunt was on! Sasha dressed in his cute Easter outfit to find his Easter basket and all the goodies that the Easter Bunny had left. His Easter basket was filled with a couple of cards (one from Ice Iowa and one from Mommy, Daddy and Blake), a new shorts outfit (yes, we're still hopeful that one day we'll be able to wear shorts again), a beautiful egg from a local

confectionery that is milk chocolate on the outside and is filled with jelly beans and various kid candies on the inside, a Dora Easter DVD, and some various candy.

Sasha quickly cleaned out the basket so that he could go on the big Easter egg hunt. He tried eating his way to clean out the basket but Mom suggested taking a couple bites of candy and then proceeding after all we had to pace ourselves since the day was still so young.

The hunt turned up a ton of eggs including some larger eggs that had various favorite characters in them like Pablo and Terrance (the Backyardigans), Dora and Boots (Dora the Explorer) and Diego (Go Diego Go).

Very fun! He had SO many eggs and he dashed about trying to find all the hidden treasures. We sat back and watched wondering how crazy next year would be with a little sister added to fun.

Waltraud had helped Ice Iowa have a special treat for Sasha. She put together this beautiful Easter pail which is still being used at this very minute to 'haul' stuff around in. There were SO many great goodies to choose from but Sasha went immediately for the rabbit.

I told Sasha that Baba's favorite way to eat a chocolate rabbit is to start with the ears. Poor bunny! He thought this sounded like a good approach and quickly unwrapped the sweet morsel.

Hmmm ... good stuff! We were able to get the rabbit away from him before the whole thing was consumed. He had other things he wanted to try - a chocolate egg, a chocolate candy, a couple peanut butter cups, a few Hugs, a bag of jelly beans ... oh so many things to sample!

Sasha helped deliver other Easter treats that the Easter Bunny left. This present was a big dark chocolate egg with various yummy chocolate candies inside.
Ice Iowa will have plenty of 'heart medication' to snack on.

We spent the rest of the morning opening Easter eggs and dumping out their sweet contents into a bowl. The remainder of the day was spent eating his way through the candy while his parents went geocaching (we hit 780 this weekend!). We had a lovely dinner of prime rib. As you might imagine, Sasha wasn't hungry. Easter was indeed a hit with a little boy who loves candy and loves his grandpa, 'Ice Iowa'.

Happy Easter to all!