Happy Easter!

I remember thinking at the beginning of the quarantine, "there's no way this will last until Easter, Easter can't be canceled." Well, I did last well through Easter and even though it wasn't canceled, it definitely was different. There were no Easter egg hunts at churches, no Good Friday or Sunday morning church service, and no brunches after church.  Things may have looked different but we worshipped in the same way. We celebrated our Risen Savior in the same way. Thankful that though things around us are different, our Savior remains the same and that is why He can be trusted and hoped in.

Our Easter season started by "egging" some friends. After I had permission from their families- we packed up Easter goodies, wiped down our eggs, and hid them in our friends' yards with gloves on.  We left eggs for them to hunt. It was so much fun for us and we hope it was fun for them, too!

Heading out to go egg our friends

Hiding eggs at our friend's house

The night before Easter we stayed up really late and had our traditional Glow-In-the-Dark egg hunt. Its so much fun to hunt for glowing eggs in a dark house!

Our glowing eggs! (I'm not sure why Jack is crying, this is the only picture I got)

Easter morning was doubly exciting for us because it marked the end of Abram's six week liquid diet. He was so happy to wake up and eat candy from his basket and enjoy his favorite meal of the day (breakfast) with all of his requests (sausage, bacon, fried eggs). 

Such big smiles because he can eat!!

Yummy! We were sure to pack it with his favorites!

Since we are home all day and every day, we have been spending a lot of time doing crafts. So for Easter, we had a fun time finding new ways to color eggs with things we have around the house.  First, we colored craft eggs in a salad spinner. I think this was our favorite. We loved how they turned out! 

Using the salad spinner to color our eggs

Look at those colors!

We also used colored whipped cream to color hard boiled eggs (we used whipped cream instead of shaving cream so we could eat them later). We loved the bright colors and learned that certain colors dye better than others. 

Covering the eggs in whipped cream

We also learned a new technique of painting this year... marbling. We just used shaving cream and food coloring. We loved to see how each one turned out different depending on the colors we chose and the patterns we made in the shaving cream. 

Making designs in shaving cream

These were beautiful! 

And finally we used baby wipes colored by markers and rubber cement to make fun eggs. The colors and designs were amazing and so fun to reveal at the end. 

Coloring our baby wipes

Eggs covered in rubber cement

These were so fun! 

A new tradition we started last year, and looked forward to this year was making our Peeps S'mores. Such an easy, but delicious recipe that we all enjoy eating together!

SO delicious! Peeps, chocolate chips and graham crackers

Chris' favorite Easter meal involves a ham and angeled (deviled) eggs, so we enjoyed his meal along with smashed potatoes and corn on the cob.  The boys even made it extra special for me by dressing up in their fancy clothes.  After our meal we took family pictures on our front porch.  It was such a fun day, and no one minded the change.  We just loved being together and celebrating our Savior and His love for us!

Our Easter dinner

I love my boys!

Mama's boys

I love them so!

Jack and Luke are 5!!

Since we were under stay at home orders, Jack and Luke's birthday looked a little bit different this year. Thankfully, we didn't have a party planned (it's our off year) but we were looking forward to taking a fun trip.  But we did make the best of our day and in the end, I would say they had a pretty great fifth birthday!

We kicked off the week by making cupcakes, to later use as decorations on their special day.  I love how each of them turned out differently and they put thought into each one they made.

Right now, Jack LOVES monkeys and Luke LOVES toucans, we decided to have a jungle themed day.  Abram loved helping me decorate the house after the boys went to bed.  We put leaves all over, decorated the table and arranged their gifts so they could see everything right when they woke up. Of course they also had balloons in their room that morning! 

The morning got started with birthday cake waffles... a new recipe I wanted to try and they were a hit! I think they might be our new birthday morning tradition! We covered them with whipped cream, sprinkles and strawberries and put Gram's special candle in each one. 

They were so thrilled when they woke up and realized they were finally 5!! They couldn't stop smiling!

Since we are stuck at home and limited on what we can do, our sweet neighbors made a birthday obstacle course. The boys loved seeing this after breakfast and knowing that Sam and Caroline made it just for them!

They also made sweet posters and put them in their windows so we could see them all day! The boys loved seeing their names in their windows!

For lunch we had Jungle Snacks... they couldn't believe that I had all this fun food and they didn't know about it. They thought it was exciting to make their lunch from snack foods. I just let them load up on whatever they wanted! They loved going back for more of their favorites! 

My sister sent them a rainbow sprinkler for their birthday. They had a blast with this in the front yard and loved riding their bikes and scooters through it.  So thankful that it is warm outside so we can play outdoors and not be stuck inside!

And for our last surprise... I asked my friend Courtney to make special cakes for Luke and Jack. Usually they share one cake, but I wanted to do something extra special this year. Jack got a chocolate monkey cake (and his favorite color is red), and Luke got a toucan cake with blue cake inside (which is his favorite color). Each boy was thrilled and they were so delicious!! It was a great ending to a fun day!

                                     

I was worried that Jack and Luke weren't going to have a special day since we couldn't do anything big to celebrate, but we had such a fun day celebrating these two! All day long they kept saying, "this is the best day ever!" Just hearing that made me smile. I'm sure their fifth birthday will be one we remember for a long time!

Spring Break- and the start of the craziness...

Spring Break was a little different for us this year... Abram had just had his second bone graft surgery, and Jack and Luke were recovering from the flu. Thankfully, my parents were here to help because Chris was supposed to be on a trip for work (more on that later). After staying at home for a week to let everyone get better, we finally took a trip to the beach. The beach is my parents' absolute favorite to be... we had so much fun!

I love this picture and their excited smiles!

Granddaddy helping Abram fly his kite.

 They just love their Gram!

Playing on the sand dunes.

Grandparents with their grands!

We had such a fun time that we went back to the beach with our friends later on in the week. It was a perfect day! The kids played and the moms got to chat.

Nothing better!

Playing with our friends.

Abram and his good friend, Eli!

The next day we wanted to go hiking. The University of North Florida has several simple trails that were just perfect for us. Our friend, Eli, joined us and we all had a great time! It was shaded and it had tons of sticks and exciting things to explore.

Jack filling up his treasure box. He was so particular about what went inside. 

And on the last day of Spring Break (or so we thought), we explored downtown. Abram had a early morning appointment and we decided to make a day of it. The first thing we did was to take the SkyWay through town.  This tram is free and we have never been on it, but we have seen it. The boys were in heaven! They thought it was so cool!

When we got off the tram we were in Hemming Park. The park has a huge mouth for some reason, so of course we had to take a picture! Across from Hemming Park is the downtown library. This library is beautiful with so many fun places to explore. Our favorites were the huge staircase and mural and the courtyard. I was so happy we made it here... they ended up closing all libraries that evening for Covid. 

After we explored downtown, we had one more stop to make... Treaty Oak. I have been wanting to see this tree since we moved here. Its the oldest tree in Jacksonville and it is huge! The boys would have loved to climb it, but of course you can't. 

We had a great week at the beach, on hikes and touring downtown. So happy to spend it with our friends and grandparents. I mentioned Chris was supposed to be on a trip, but his trip got canceled because of Covid.  Right after our fun week, everything started closing. On our way home from downtown, I made one last trip to the boys to Target and I saw all the empty aisles. We loaded up on chalk, bubbles and an inflatable pool. I knew we were going to be home for awhile.