Ethel von Nozzenstrap

Easter dawned such a beautiful day, The Precious wanted to be outside from the beginning. Amazingly, we were all dressed and ready on time for the early service (not the sunrise service, mind you, but considering we're often late for the second service, this was impressive).

We had the joy of sharing the celebratory day with my parents. Such fun!

True story: One Easter a handful of years ago, my mom was up early getting breakfast together when my dad walked into the kitchen and said, "He is risen." Instead of hearing my mother reply, "He is risen indeed!" as he expected, he got the lesser known response of, "Do you think he smelled the cinnamon rolls?"

Unfortunately I was not there to witness the event, as I surely would love to have seen the confused and slightly alarmed expression on my father's face. I don't know how long it took them to work out that my mom, her mind on practical things (getting to church on time) thought my dad was referring to my brother getting out of bed. Thus, a Martin family tradition was born and every Easter we have cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

I was determined to dye Easter eggs with Andrew this year. Fortunately Nana had the foresight to suggest the deck as our dying headquarters as Andrew's favorite part of the process was dropping the eggs into the dye and watching the colored liquid splash everywhere. He had opted for zero nap that day and thus was even less moved by my pleas of "gentle!" than usual.

It was still a lot of fun, cracked eggs, splattered clothes and all.

Afterward we tossed the traumatized eggs into the grass in the backyard for The Precious to hunt, and having one egg hunt under his belt already, he took to the task right away. He enjoyed this part even more than the dying - the family all standing around applauding wildly at each new acquisition. Sometimes they made it to the basket, and sometimes they were simply hurled back into the grass with glee.

Yesterday I gave Andrew some thawed frozen blueberries for breakfast and he went wild over them! He'd pop them into his mouth as fast as he could ...

... guzzle the juice from the bottom of the cup ...

... then request another serving. How could I possibly say no to that face?

He presented to me a delightfully blue diaper this afternoon. Ah, the things that amuse me these days!