Easter 2015…

The 2015 Easter celebration, for us, began the evening before Easter, when our three oldest grandchildren came late Saturday afternoon, ready to color some eggs!  When all was said and done, they colored almost 3 dozen eggs,then decided they’d rather go play.  Their moms finished coloring the rest of the eggs, and I began pouring out the egg dye.  Only then did we discover another dozen eggs, still sitting in their carton on the counter, waiting to be colored!  We decided to let those wait until after supper.

Let the fun begin!

While the women and children were coloring eggs, the men threw a few hot dogs on the grill and, in doing so, cooked  supper for everyone.  We opened a bag of chips, and had an instant meal, which everyone seemed to enjoy.  We  dined on Easter cookies, cupcakes, and brownies for dessert.

Easter Day began early– around 5 a.m., at our  house.  While everyone else went to church, I cooked turkey and dressing, while Ed got busy trying to find hiding places for 350 eggs!  Do you have any idea how long it takes one person to hide 350 eggs over 3/4 of an acre?  I finally took a quick break from cooking, and helped Ed hide a few of those eggs, too.  I was just finishing up the noon meal, when everyone began to arrive.

waiting to be found…

As always, we had a good time around the kitchen table, while everyone ate their lunch. Of course, as soon as the meal was finished, the kids wanted to know when they were going to get to hunt eggs!  Our oldest son, had to leave, right after lunch, to conduct church services at a local assisted living facility, so we tried to hold the egg hunt off until he got back.  I think it was about 3 p.m when the hunt actually began, and Brett arrived soon afterward.

the search is on

We had five egg hunters, this year, our four ‘grands’, plus a guest hunter. By the end of the two-hour hunt, I think everybody’d had their fill of looking for hidden eggs!  Our oldest grandson, Caden, has blossomed into quite an egg hunter, so he found the most eggs.  He didn’t stop searching until he’d found an even 100!  He managed to find both prize eggs, too!  Granddaughter, Madison, wasn’t far behind Caden, with 81 eggs in her basket.

the champ

This was youngest grandson, Evan’s first Easter on his feet.  He’s just 17 months old, and was more interested in the fountains, the gold-fish pond, and the rocks, than he was in finding eggs.  Unfortunately, Evan managed to uncover an ant bed we’d missed, in his explorations, so he went home from Mimi’s house with a few ant bites 😦

Evan and his mom

Toward the end of the day, the children decided to play and ride bikes on the little dirt lane that leads up to our house.  The adults were all gathered under the shade of our old magnolia tree, relaxing.  Suddenly, we heard a child screaming, and looked into the distance. We could see someone flailing about on the road, and about half of the adults took off in a sprint!  It turns out, in an effort to avoid running over grandson, Chase, Madison had somehow fallen off of her bicycle, and injured her right arm.

We applied an ice pack, gave Madison some ibuprofen and her parents decided to take a ‘wait and see’ approach.  The arm wasn’t visibly injured, at first, but later it began to swell some.  A visit to the doctor, on Monday, revealed that Madison had, indeed, broken her forearm in the fall!

The whole gang

At the end of a very busy, exciting, tiring, and traumatic Easter day, we still managed to gather everybody together for one last photograph.  The azaleas were drooping, and looked about how most of us were feeling, by then, but we took our annual family photo in front of them anyway.

We can now add ‘Madison’s broken arm’ to our growing list of Easter memories, as well as the fact that we didn’t find all of the eggs–again.  Easter 2015 is officially in the history books, frozen in time by one last photograph…in which Madison is holding her arm!