The Sees: The Sees Do Easter

Easter morning starts early at our house, thanks to an over zealous Easter Bunny and an early bird child who habitually rises before the sunshine. Clarke reluctantly drags himself out of bed, hours earlier than schedule, to acknowledge the joy on Brock's face as he discovers that the Easter Bunny has, indeed, visited our house.

First things first: An empty Easter basket sits on the dining room table. Attached is a note that reads:

"Collect the eggs and solve the clue. Hoppy, Happy Easter to You!
To my buddy Brock, from the Easter Bunny"

Clad in his flannel footie pajamas, Brock races around the house, shouting excitedly every time he finds a poorly hidden, plastic egg.

To be fair, most of the eggs are easy to spy:

The spoils of the Easter egg hunt produce genuine disappointment as each contains only puzzle pieces or stickers and not candy. Darn that Easter bunny!

The puzzle pieces are assembled, thanks in large part to daddy and a slightly bummed out Brock who is still pining for sugar. The finished puzzle looks like this:

That clever Easter bunny attached clipart images of itself to cabinets and doors throughout the house. Brock finds this mysterious, but discovers that he must match his Easter Bunny puzzle with the correct image and then open the cabinet to find his Easter basket!

Aha!
After wandering around the house hopelessly trying to match his puzzle bunny with the 16 different bunnies taped to doors and cabinets, Brock finds the right spot!
His Easter basket is hiding in the family room entertainment center!
Hoppy! Hoppy! Joy! Joy!

The Easter basket theme this year begins with "Star" and ends with "Wars."
Instantaneously, Brock forgets his earlier "What? No candy in these eggs??!" disappointment and his mood brightens and eyes grow wide as saucers as he spies the Star Wars Lego boxes.
Hoppy, hoppy, joy, joy, indeed!

Hooray for jelly beans!!!
(notice the *little* bag! The Easter bunny doesn't care for little Brocks continually hopped up on sugar. Way to go, Easter bunny!!!)

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
(Do you see that curve in Brock's cheek?? It mean's he's SMILING joyfully!)
A glow-in-the-dark Lego Star Wars shirt complete with his favorite Jedi, Luke Skywalker!
Brock is in love.

Okay, okay. So football isn't the only sport worth playing....
A baseball bat also makes a fantastic makeshift lightsaber. Who knew?!

Easter simply would not be complete without the annual egg dying. This year, our egg dye box featured Star Wars (betcha didn't see that one coming!).

Star Wars colors. Star Wars stickers. You get it, right? STAR WARS EVERYTHING!

Easter also means a long day of fun with Renberg cousins and See cousins and Easter egg hunts and lots of really fabulous food. This year was no exception. We lunched at my parent's house where we had a dutch oven feast and then watched General Conference while the kiddos played and my mom taught me to crochet. After conference, Brock and his cousins Jamin and Travis went on an Easter egg hunt! It was a fast hunt as these 4-year olds are becoming pros at spotting eggs!

Then it was off to Grandma & Grandpa Sees for a ham dinner and more fun with cousins. And, of course, another Easter egg hunt!

Brock was the first one out the door, having waited, jacket zipped and basket in hand, for what seemed like hours for the "green light" to open the back door and burst into Easter egg hunter's paradise. Clearly, the thrill of the hunt doesn't wear thin after a long day of egg hunts. If anything, the energy was magnified and the hunt was competitive!

My sweetheart nieces. :)

They complimented my 5-year old, worn, and torn shoes that night, calling them "cute" (probably because it was dark in the living room and they couldn't see how truly hideous the shoes actually are by the light of day) and then complimented my shirt and my necklace; flattering themselves into a promised shoe shopping date at the mall with me, their favorite aunt. How did this happen???!