Easter Egg Derby

We held our annual Easter Egg Derby the day after Easter.  Scott is no longer doing the work of two people at the office so he is able to come home at more reasonable times each night.  He was able to join us in plenty of time for our egg derby.  Hooray!! We got our tournament bracket ready and the kids named all their Easter eggs.  Here are Matthew and Anna ready to go.

Emma was a good participant this year.  She's pretty good with eye-hand coordination tasks so she rolled the eggs pretty well for a two year old.  Way to go Emma!!

Grant and Matthew having a show down.

We roll the hard boiled eggs at each other and when they collide only one of them will crack.  The cracked egg is out and the winner advances to the next round of the tournament.  We started with 32 eggs this year.  I think all of mine were out in the first round.  :)  But we had a lot of fun.

Here we are just before the championship egg roll.

Rolling for the title:  Grant's egg:  Hulk Smash vs. John's egg:  Blueberry

Grant has won two years in a row...will it be a three-peat??

Rolling for the title!!

And the winner this year is........

John!!!!!!!!   Here he is with his winning egg, Blueberry (named by him) and his giant chocolate bunny prize.  The egg derby is always an exercise in good sportsmanship and every year the kids have trouble when their eggs lose.  The tournament thing is hard because all the eggs lose except one.  There were some tears at the end of the derby as there always are.  Scott and I are hoping somewhere in all this the kids will learn something about sportsmanship.  You win some, you lose some.

Grant was sad that he didn't three-peat but he felt a lot better after John shared his chocolate bunny prize.

Way to go John!

Egg Derby winners of years past

2017 - John (Blueberry), Runner Up: Grant (Hulk Smash)

2016 - Grant (Magma Cube), Runner Up: John (Gumball)

2015 - Grant (Clapper Shooter), Runner Up: Scott (Seattle)

2014 - Anna (Raspberry Rabbit), Runner Up: Can't Remember

2013 - Emily (Tim Gunn), Runner Up: Emily (Rainbow Butterfly)

2012 - *Andrew (Egg Fleam), Runner Up: Can't Remember

*We egg derby-ed with another family that year and one of their kids won

Easter

and Spring Break Part 5

On our last day of spring break we went to the Tech Museum in San Jose.  We watched an Imax movie (about space - I think they have three different movies all about space!!) and spent a few hours exploring the displays at the museum.  Here are a few pictures from The Tech.

And then spring break was over.

The kids headed back to school and we started preparing for Easter.  One night after school we dyed Easter eggs.  Somehow I always end up angry at the end of Easter egg dyeing so I tried to remain calm and pleasant this year.  Emma did drop some hard boiled eggs from a great height into the dye, breaking the egg and splashing egg dye far and wee (which John did last year) but I tried not to be too big of a mom-ster (deep, cleansing breaths).  And we got through it.  Hopefully it was fun for the kids.

John was very enthusiastic about dyeing the eggs

He got lots of eggs dyed.  Good work John.

Emma's egg matched her potato chip

Anna and Matthew thinking up names for their eggs

We had fun getting the eggs ready.

Here are the kids Easter egg hunting in our back yard

They made short work of it.  We had to walk Emma through it.  

She wasn't too sure about picking up eggs off the ground.

The big kids left some for her and she eventually got it.

They got quite a haul

Enjoying bunny buns on Easter morning

So delicious!!

We have church at 1pm this year so Scott and I had to do some creative food preparation to get our Easter ham cooked.  Usually we cook it all afternoon in the oven.  So we cooked it before church and did most of our Easter dinner prep beforehand.

I only once in a while get the kids special Easter outfits.  But this year I did.  We were running a little late to church and it was raining as we left but I did want to get a before church picture.  Because by the end of church who knows what state we will be in.  All bets are off.

 Everyone was looking in the general direction of the camera and no one was crying.  So that's something.  We made it through church.  Scott and I are still teaching sunbeams together so every week is a harrowing adventure.  We have a runner in our sunbeam class who keeps us on our toes.  But we made it through church today and got to go home for Easter dinner.

This is not a great picture but our ham was fantastically tasty and a big hit with the kids.  We also had scalloped potatoes, Scott's buttermilk rolls, strawberries and a strawberry spinach salad.  We don't even bother making dessert on Easter.  There is always plenty of chocolate and/or bunny buns to go around.

The Easter table ready for food...

...food and people.

It must be time to eat.  Easter seemed busy this year.  But I think life is just kind of busy these days.  Scott and I are making friends here (the kids have already made lots of friends).  Scott's company finally hired a new CFO (9 months after the previous CFO left) and the new guy started work within the past week or so, taking some of the burden off Scott's shoulders, so we're hoping life will get a little (or a lot) less stressful for him.  And the rest of us are just holding on as we make it through the end of the school year.  I recently spent several hours cleaning out the garage and finally unpacked our last box.  The garage looks a lot better and I count this as a personal triumph.  If I'm ever feeling really defeated I go out and look at the garage to remind myself that the most daunting of tasks is not impossible.  I still have more clutter to deal with in the house but getting there.  Seven more weeks of school until summer...

Spring Break: Part 4

or Happy Birthday Grant!!

Grant has been eagerly awaiting his 6th birthday and luckily we were able to do all our de-lousing the day before so we could do some fun birthday things.  Grant wanted to go to a new trampoline place in town.  He was so excited to go for Matthew's birthday but hurt himself literally walking into the place so he didn't get to jump last time.  This time we made it in with no accidents and everyone had fun.  Scott wasn't there this time 'cause it was a work day.  Here are some trampoline pics.

So we had lots of fun jumping and no injuries.  Hooray!

Back at home we got ready for Grant's Birthday celebration.  

He requested a Minecraft cake with chocolate cake and green frosting.

He loved it!

He also wanted to grill hot dogs and hamburgers outside for his birthday.  Scott fired up our grill and we had a nice little cookout.  It was surprisingly cold and wet that afternoon so we didn't all eat outside.  Only the brave among us.

I made Grant go out for a quick picture but he wanted to stay in too

We had to destroy the TNT piñata.

And gather up all the piñata booty

There was some bargaining that went on

And finally cake time!

Grant had to pop balloons to get his treasure hunt clues to find his presents.  He thought the slowly deflating balloons were very funny.  Finally he found his presents.

He was all business when it came to opening gifts

We had a great time celebrating Grant's birthday!

Happy Birthday Grant!  He's been bringing fun and mischief to our lives for six years now!  :)