Our Happy, Clucky, Pukey Easter

Easter came and went too fast this year! It always throws me off when Easter falls in March, and I had never understood until this year, why Easter changes so much. Thanks to my very smart friend, Julianne, I now know why Easter is when it is. It is the first Sunday after the first full moon, after the Spring Equinox, (or the First Day of Spring for those like me who didn't know the word Equinox meant.) Wow, I feel so much smarter this year, thanks for educating me Julianne!

We were excited for our annual Robison cousin Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday at Jeff & Crystal's, they are so gracious to host us and let us all enjoy their beautiful yard.  I was especially excited for Jens to really discover all the fun of Easter Egg Hunting this year, Ryan was ready with the video camera and I was ready with the camera to capture all of his excitement when we let him loose and he discovered eggs filled with candy were his for the taking.  We corral all the kids in the house and then let them out into the backyard, littlest kids getting a head start, he came running out... and went straight for the basketball!  Should have known.  As soon as he saw the ball, he put down his bucket and didn't give it another thought.  This kid loves balls.  Then he moved on to the chickens and there was no competing with that.  I kept trying to coax him into coming along to find the candy, but the chickens were much more interesting.

While he was doing this.... 

I was

Pierce & Madi were doing this....

We finally persuaded him to find one egg.

 And then it was back to visit the chickens.  These turned out to be my very favorite pictures of the day.  Love this boy so much. 

All the cousins!  Well, all those in attendance.
Ira, Ellie, Davis, Danielle, Brock,
Brooke, Calli, Kelton, Matthew, Logan, Jens, Pierce,
Lily, Madi, Bridger, Thatcher, Dallen, Harrison and Graci
We are so lucky to have such fun cousins, we love playing with them!

The fun kept going and we were lucky to have Aunt Crystal get out one of the big bounce houses that they have recently acquired for their new business (check them out http://stgeorgefun.com/).  The kids had SO much fun bouncing and sliding!

Jens was a little unsure at first...

But after a few times down with Davis and Brother he was running with the big kids!

His pants were just slowing him down.  Lost his pants and was cruising up by himself in no time! 

The anticipation of Easter morning was high!  I was hoping for a better reaction to an Easter basket from Jens than I got from the Easter hunt.  He did not disappoint.   I guess when the candy is visible, and there are no balls in view, he doesn't mess around.  Just like Christmas, he didn't waste any time and dove right in to the best candy in his basket. 

 

Pierce and Madi were both thrilled with the new books they found in their baskets, and loved the small Lego sets they found hidden inside eggs.  Glad that Easter Bunny has a good mind for reading!  

Sweet kids!

After all the excitement we enjoyed breakfast, except for Madi who started not feeling well.  I was a little worried that she wouldn't eat and she hadn't even had any candy so I knew it wasn't a sugar induced tummy ache.  After church Madi still wasn't feeling good and started throwing up that afternoon.  I felt so bad, poor girl didn't get to enjoy a single piece of Easter candy.  I was hoping it was just going to be a 24 hour bug, but no such luck this time.  Rather the next 10 days were some level of awful each day.  Vomit, diarrhea, our first trip to the Emergency Room, and the worst "flu" sickness I have ever had in my life.  Yuck, yuck, yuck!  Everyone in the family got sick and everyone was affected differently but it can be summed up as awful.  Awful, awful, awful!   After 3 days of being sick Madi was having such intense pain in the middle of the night I thought something had to be wrong, there was no way a stomach flu would cause her that much pain!  So after several attempts to calm and comfort her in the middle of the night I took her to the ER at 4:00 AM, thinking she probably had appendicitis.  2 hours and $2000 later, no it's "just a bad virus".  After it went through all of us and a no good, very bad week, I was so glad to finally have everyone healthy again!  I had never been that sick with a virus before and it definitely made me appreciate my good health!  It also made me think I for sure, never ever want to get pregnant again, ug!  Too much of a reminder of morning/all day sickness!  Blah!  I wish I could say we've all been healthy since but this week were dealing with strep throat and a yucky croupy virus.  But I wont blog about that.  At least not today.  Madi's 7th birthday is up next!