Easter 2009

We had a nice Easter this year.

The boys had Friday and Monday off, so it was a nice long weekend!

We began by coloring eggs on Friday night with Miss Mary.

We had a TON of eggs!!!!

Kru was a lot more focused this year and took his time.  No more just tossing eggs into the cup!

By the end of the 6 dozen or so eggs, he was ready for bed!

Way to be using the spoon and not your hands Kru-man!

Miss Mary taking her time!

Cute eggs!

Such crazy kids!!!! =)

Saturday we just relaxed.  Darrin took the boys to the park and I caught up on my scrapbooking that I haven't done in forever!!!

Easter morning the boys were up early to find their baskets!  And then we went to church.  The boys all heard the Resurrection Story and what Easter is really all about.  I had the joy of serving in children's worship on Sunday and we sang, danced and retold the Easter story as well!!  

In the afternoon, we went over to the house of a gillion girls and had an egg hunt with Diamond, Deisia, and Little Man!  Miss DaVondria, Miss Heather, Miss Brittany, Shay, Darrin and I hid the eggs!  The yard is HUGE!  and the boys had fun searching for all of the eggs!  Too much candy was eaten, for sure!

And then.....not sure how it began....a waterfight began!  What started out with tiny waterguns turned into almost every trashcan in the house, a hose on the roof, pans and pitchers - full blown waterfight!!!  The college age kids had no mercy on the littler kids!  Almost everyone was soaked by the end.  Darrin and I sat safely in the house, laughing and dry!!!  I only have these 2 pictures because I knew if I ventured out to take even 1 outside, I would have been fair game! Just know that my 3 boys were soaked, dirty and rode home almost buck-naked!!!!

Darrin sneaking up from behind to surprise Dakota!

Kye and Mary filling up their pitchers!

(Yes, Mary's foot is broken!!!)

No snakes this Easter, but we had a wonderful day remembering what Jesus did for us and having fun with friends!!!

The Rest of Our Easter Story

So now.... here's the rest of the story....

We had had a wonderful day and the weather was still nice. The boys were in the backyard playing when we noticed Shadow, the cat, playing with something in grass. Darrin all of a sudden freaked out when he realized it was a snake!!!

The coloring of the snake made Darrin think it was a Coral Snake, which is very venomous, but Darrin knew that the Milk Snake has very similar striping. He hollered at me to check the internet for the differences between them. He was attempting to keep the cat, dog and children away from the snake until we knew for sure what kind it was.


We eventually realized it was a Milk Snake.

Red touch yellow, kill a fellow
Red touch black, venom lack

So we were OK!!!

Darrin was considering keeping the thing for a pet for Kye, but I had other ideas. We obviously didn't want to harm the thing, so we called our snake friend, Fernando!!!


Darrin caught him on Kru's toy rake, while we waited to Fernando and his family to come over.




Last time we found a snake, Fernando was very disappointed that we didn't call him, so I was not going to make that mistake again!!!

He was very excited and said it was very rare to find one of these in the wild. We ended up putting the snake it a sand pail with a basketball on top of it! Wouldn't want it to escape!! For Sure!!!



When the Aquirres arrived, excitement was thick!
Of course the snake came out and everyone, well almost everyone touched him!

Thinking ahead, Fernando had brought his snake identifying book along! YEAH!!

We established that we had a Louisiana Milk Snake. Again, being very rare, Fernando , our snake expert, recommended that we release the snake back into nature so that we could have more snakes for people to enjoy, of course you would have to be one of those people who like to enjoy snakes!!!


So after everyone, who wanted a turn, had a turn petting the snake. We all packed up to go out to Lick Creek Park to release the snake.

We had never been out there! Yeah! A new place to go!




Fernando, having had snakes for pets and handling them often, was great with the snake and the kids!











I think Kye would enjoy having a pet for a snake, but after hearing how and what you have to do in order to feed the snake, we aren't up for that yet and my children aren't old enough yet to be that responsible. Mom is NOT going to be dethawing mice on the kitchen counter to feed to a snake!

Sorry boys!!! I hope that you will survive this mean mother who doesn't want a snake in her house right now! :)






So with expertise precision, we put the snake into a sock for his journey to the park.














When we arrived at the park, Fernando in his Fernando-way, made sure everyone understood what we were doing and why. We even had a little lesson in cold-blooded vs warm blooded!!

Thanks Fernando!!!









Here comes the snake!!!!!




















Fernando had never seen one of these in the wild and asked to have a photo with the snake!!!!!

What a snake charmer!













Dakota was chosen to release the snake! But of course, Kye, Mia and Isabella wanted to too!










And there he or she went!













Good bye, Louisiana Milk Snake!


Kye missed it almost immediately!

Kru wanted to know where the swings were!?!






It was late and to end a wonderful Easter, we all went to Double Daves for some yummy pizza!

We hadn't planned on this ending to our Easter, but it was so nice to end the day with friends!!

A Blessed Easter!

Easter was beautiful in so many ways this year!
* the weather was gorgeous
* Easter Kids' Church was powerful
* it was relaxing
* it was blessed
It was a great weekend!!!!

We began Friday at the park with a big egg hunt with some friends.
This was our 2nd year participating and the boys had fun!

There was even an egg toss, but they were hard-boiled.

Early Saturday morning, we arrived at Kroger for their egg hunt!

Kye found 55 eggs, Kru 33 and Dakota had 44.
Isn't that odd!?!
Needless to say, I have a TON of eggs around the house!

The weather was gorgeous and we worked outside
almost the rest of the day.
Planting, mowing, laying mulch, pulling weeds!

Later that day, Whitney came over and we colored almost 6 dozen eggs!
Remember, Darrin LOVES to color eggs!

Everyone had a great time and Kru's hands are still stained!

Sunday morning came, and of course Dakota was up way too early and
convinced Kye to get up as well to search for their baskets.
Kru eventually wandered out of his bedroom to find his as well.

Then it was off to church. I had the privilege to help with Kids' church. We sang amazing worship songs, and learned a few new ones!
(My favorites... Supernatural and Superhero!)
We made bookmarks of the Resurrection
and Crosses to remind us of Jesus' sacrifice for us.
It was a great service and I was so happy to be with kids
on this special day!

I hope you had a blessed Easter as well!
P.S.
There is more to this Easter story, but it deserves a post of its own....