When I look at these three, my heart could just explode - I love them so much!
Family pictures make me so happy!
Easter basket hunting time! Bella always wants us to hide hers in a really hard spot. Her basket was hidden in the trunk of Andy's car. Graydon's was behind the TV and Curtis's was in the ottoman where we store extra blankets. Bella found Graydon and Curtis's baskets almost right away (she didn't let them know) and still managed to find her basket first - even though it was in the hardest spot. Each basket was filled with one main item and multiple snacks. Bella's big item was a water volleyball.
Graydon's big item was a new pair of goggles. It seems that we have to get him a new pair every year because they either get lost or broken. His smile here shows off his recent tooth losses on his bottom row.
Curtis got a new squeeze bottle. He's been recently eyeing them up. Now all three kids have a squeeze bottle.
The boys came SO close to finding their baskets several times. Graydon would open the TV cabinet, but never look behind the TV. Curtis would lift up the ottoman lid, but never move any blankets. This happened multiple times. Andy and I couldn't help but laugh.
The day was so beautiful that we played outside for a little while. We bumped the volleyball around, played basketball, and rode bikes. But soon enough the kids were itching to hunt for eggs. Even though they are getting older, this is something that they all are still enthusiastic about - which I love!
Graydon and Curtis checked out the prize table before the hunt. As they are getting older, it's getting harder to find inexpensive prizes that they might actually like, which is why there are 20 $1 bills in the middle of the table. You can never go wrong with cash.
And they're off!
Graydon needed a little assistance with getting this egg out of the tree.
While we were looking for eggs, Andy spotted two morel mushrooms in our yard! Hunting for morels is something that he and his friend Jesse used to do before he died. Andy hasn't been able to find any morels since then until this day. And in our yard!
They were both a substantial size, so he cut them and fried them up as a little snack.
Bella was a determined egg hunter. Of the 104 eggs that we hid, she found 55 of them! She was also the winner of our Golden Egg/Bunny.
Lots of eggs were just filled with candy, but about 30 of them had slips of paper listing various prizes.
Graydon had his heart set on a big bouncy ball that he saw on the prize table. I watched him open each egg in anticipation. As he neared the end of his pile, he shouted out victoriously "Big Bouncy Ball!"
Time for prize redemption.
The next day, Andy and I drove up to Middletown to visit Jesse's grave. His headstone was just placed a few weeks ago. It took a little while because his wife, Jessica, wanted to be sure it was just right. In addition to hunting for morels, Jesse also looked for arrowheads. He had quite a substantial collection, which Jessica incorporated towards the bottom of the stone.
This is what the picture on the back looks like. It is beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. It shows a couple, with the dad holding up his son in the air. One of the last photos that Jessica has of Jesse is him holding up their baby boy in the air. The two dogs represent their dogs, Nova and Penta. Nova passed away just a couple of months after Jesse did. There is also a football and deer and other items in the picture that hold a lot of symbolism. I'm glad that we were able to see it all in person.
