Easter Weekend - March 25-27

Happy Late Easter!!

If you celebrate Easter, I hope that you had a wonderful holiday!  If you don't celebrate, I hope that your weekend was equally as wonderful. 

We had a nice weekend with quality time with the kids and some cousins filled with egg decorating, egg hunts, and good food.  The kids seemed to have a fantastic weekend and Madison even made a YouTube video about what the kids got in their Easter Baskets at home.  I posted it on Instagram and FB, but I will be sure to include it here for you to enjoy.  My kids are truly the best- even when they are annoying the hell out of me.

Egg decorating took place on Saturday at Grandma Virginia's house this year.  Last year we did it over there also.  Not many tears this year, it's not real Easter egg decorating unless at least 1 person cries.  Hahaha-- at least that's the case in our family.  The decorating part went over without too much drama.  Unfortunately the day sort of ended abruptly with some fighting amongst siblings ( and this time the kids were not involved--). I will have to admit, that this was certainly not my finest moment- but I will spare you all of the details.  If you know any of my kids and you are close to them, then chances are you will hear about or already have.  The younger 2 are still learning to keep certain "family stories" to themselves, hee hee.  We did do a live video on FB for the first 11 minutes of egg decorating.  The eggs came out nicely and Jaida (Amanda's daughter) also decorated her hands quite nicely as well, even though Amanda didn't think so. Damian always misses out because of gigs and working at the store, but I try to take plenty of pictures and the kids always keep him up to date.

Easter Sunday started off pretty late for my kids. They didn't wake up until closer to 9a.  They seemed to enjoy their baskets and then just hung out around the house until we headed over to Mama and PopUp's house mid afternoon. 

We spent the rest of the day over there with Mama, PopUp, Veronica (mama's friend from church), Dalila, Iliana, Zaccai, Julie, Natalia, Abigail, Angelina, and Azarah.  As always, Madison, Myles, and Mayci had to search for their Easter baskets in the house.  And then the kids separated for a "treasure" Easter egg hunt, followed by just a normal Easter Egg Hunt.  This year, Zaccai was in charge of the older kids treasure hunt.  The older group this year was Madison, Angelina, Myles and Azarah.  They started off when one a few clues to get them around the yard and then in typical Zaccai style they ended up all over the place, having to send pictures back and forth to Zaccai to have to get the next clue.  They had a blast and both the older group and younger groups competed their missions!!  The kids, except for Madison, continued with the "normal" egg hunt - but with the amount of eggs hidden, I am sure they will be finding more for years to come.

Here is a little bit of the back and forth between Madison and her group and Zaccai  via texts during their treasure hunt:

WOOOOOHOOOO!!!  We found the egg!!!  -- I guess Mayci wanted in on the action too! :)

Easter Weekend 4/3/15 - 4/5/15

Four months into 2015 and I have yet to post to this blog.  I SUCK!!  Plain and simple hahaha

EASTER WEEKEND

Friday April 3, 2015  --- GOOD FRIDAY
     And a good Friday it was.  No dance or activities for the kids, Myles and Madison had no school, so the kids just hung out during the day.  Madison stayed with PopUp all day since she was planning on going to a gig with him later on.  The little ones came home for a little while and then we dropped them back off to Mama after the play at Church so they could spend the night.
     Damian also had no gigs, so we decided to head down to The Side Door in Old Lyme to see the Ralph Peterson Sextet.  This meant we got to see Zaccai and Luques play also.  Such a nice place.  I had never been before and it was quite the spot.  We also got to see Josh Evans play, who I honestly haven't heard play since Damian and I were dating. UMMM--- Talk about a great performance!!  Ralph OBVIOUSLY put on a phenomenal show and it was nice to see him as well.  The other 2 members of the band were Marcus Strickland (who I had heard of but never heard play-and boy was he GREAT) and Hailey Niswanger( who was also fantastic).  It was such a great show and I had an awesome time.  Tom, Paul, and Yvette also came to see the band and it was nice to have some time to catch up with Yvette who was enjoying day 1 of her and Paul's kid free weekend!!I also got to see Yunie, who I hadn't seen forever.  Do you see the trend-- I never see anyone-- I really need to get out more :)

It was good for Damian and I to get out and do something together, since it doesn't happen often.  Not to mention, it must have been must have been my lucky week because I also got to see Karina..and that would mean that I saw her twice in one week.  Seriously, that is a rare thing.  Between her schedule and Luques' and then Damian and mine with the kids, we HARDLY see each other.  Definitely not as much as I would like.  But we are working on that.  We try hard to stay in touch by texting/ calling occasionally, but sometimes the time lapses between texts makes me ashamed!  We are hoping, well at least I am, to start getting together more often.

Here are a couple of "selfies" from when we saw Karina when she was up for the Passion of The King play at the end of March:

Oh how I love her!!!!!!  I miss her so much and wish we didn't let so much time pass between seeing one another!  She is one of my favorite people!!

Saturday, April 4, 2015
     All the kids were at Mama and PopUp's for the morning, Damian had to work as usual, and me---  well, I was getting ready to run my first quarter marathon or 10K-- 6.55 miles.
I was meeting up with Jen, Whitney, and a few of their friends to run the Greater Hartford 9th annual quarter Marathon at the reservoir in West Hartford.  I was so nervous, did lousy, BUT-- I FINISHED!

My view at one point while I was running... the fact that I was able to take this picture shows that I really wasn't using all of my energy for the run haha

 I had to walk more than I ever would have wanted, and once I start walking, it is harder for me to get my groove back.  I will be running another one at the end of May in Mystic, so I hope to do better then.  I am also starting a new training regiment that I hope will improve my motication, discipline, and pace just a little.
 I will never be a FAST runner but I AM A RUNNER!! I am going to try to embrace that term.  Doesn't mean that I love running, but I do love the feeling I get at then end of the run.  I feel invincible! And I wouldn't trade that feeling for anything.
   For the afternoon on Saturday, Madison went off with Lisa to a birthday party at Launch Trampoline Park and the little ones and I headed over to Grandma Virginia's house to hang out and color some Easter eggs (which I stupidly left over there, uuugghh)

Me and Jaida attempting to decorate an egg.. she only lasted about a minute before deciding she didn't want to have anything to do with eggs

Sunday, April 5, 2015 --- EASTER SUNDAY
     The kids woke up pretty early to get their Easter baskets. Well, Mayci woke up them up early because she was crying about a sore throat.  Damian decided not to join us for the baskets because he was so tired, but Lisa Face-timed with us!

Note Jaida's little basket at the far left :).. then Madison, Myles, and Mayci's baskets-- we don't go to crazy for Easter in our household

Myles, was extremely unimpressed with his basket.  Unfortunately the Easter bunny got him a movie that he already had at Mama's house, a lego set thing that he doesn't like, and he has now informed me that he does NOT like M&M's anymore- yet I swear he ate a whole bag the week before, but you know-- kids....  **epic Mom/Easter bunny failure**
Madison seemed to really like the outfit she got and she actually picked out the movie she got in her basket so I know she liked that.  And Mayci-- well, Mayci likes everything- I think her favorite was the jelly beans.  Sadly though, she only ate 1 jellybean and then ended up throwing up shortly after and feeling sick for a better part of Easter morning.

Mayci's set up in the earlier part of the day-- peep the "throw-up" bucket to her right :)

We headed over to Ted and Abby's in the early afternoon and as always, they had cool treasure hunts, hidden eggs and baskets for the kids to find.  Thanks to some interesting remedy that Zaccai gave us, Mayci was feeling pretty good so she was able to participate and have fun with the rest of the kids.  Julie, Justine, Obed, Davian, and Dej all came by also.  So great to see them and the kids had a blast.  Mayci and Dej played so well together and Madison and Davian always get along GREAT!!  I love watching them interact with one another!

I swear I was taking a picture of something here... if you squint  your eyes, tilt  your head to the left and look in themiddle towards the back of the picture, you will see Madison and Davian (they sort of blend in to the trees)out on their treasure hunt  They are just sooo darn cute!!

Madison getting all  up in Dej's face while Dej is trying to look at her Easter basket in peace

They all sang Happy Birthday to Pop Up whose birthday is on April 8th

Dalila and Iliana came by to hang out as well.  It was nice and laid back.  Although the weather was rainy and at one point, there were even some snow flurries, it didn't stop the kids at all from running around outside to look for "treasures" and candy filled plastic eggs!  The kids asked to stay over Sunday night into Monday since Julie, Zaccai, and Davian were staying and because Damian and I are such pushovers **HAHAHA**  we said yes!!

Hopefully you had a fun filled weekend, whether you celebrate Easter or not!!