A Belated Easter Post

-Saturday morning I awakened Abraham early (9:00 am -- so don't feel too bad for him) so that we could take Soren to his very first Easter Egg hunt in Idaho Falls. We were very excited. On the drive to town, we talked about how cute it would be to see Soren and a bunch of other little 0-to-2-year-olds toddling around, picking up plastic eggs and putting them in their mouths, wandering off in the wrong direction, tripping over each other, and being generally cute. We brought a camera and prepared ourselves for some serious cuteness. And then, as it did on Christmas, reality kicked in. We arrived at the park, lined up with the other kids in Soren's age group, and waited with great anticipation for the signal to turn our kids loose. At last the horn sounded. We sat Soren down on the ground, encouraging him to walk forward and look at the brightly colored objects on the ground. In the meanwhile, all the other parents had swept their children into their arms and were shoving their way through the fray, stuffing as many eggs into their baskets as they could get fit into their gigantic adult paws. Soren just stood watching, dazed. Everything was gone in twenty seconds.

Soren stands outside the fray at his first Easter egg hunt.

The highlight of our Easter egg hunt was running into our good friends Ressa and Ryan, who had brought Ressa's daughter, Grace, to try her hand at the warlike art of Easter egg hunting. She seems to have had a more successful experience hunting eggs with the 3-to-5-year-olds.

Grace showing off her spoils.

-Saturday afternoon Auntie Loriann came over and we (me, Abe, Loriann, and Abe's brother Quentin) dyed eggs during Soren's nap. We'd gone through two dozen eggs when Loriann noticed that Quentin hadn't yet dyed a single egg. "Are you going to dye an egg?" she asked.
"I was going to," replied Quentin, "But while I was thinking about a design, you guys dyed all the eggs."
Loriann rolled her eyes and handed him a freshly boiled egg. "HERE'S an egg," she said. "Hold on to it until you decide."
Quentin sat for a few more moments, then quick-dipped an egg into a cup of blue dye. "There," he said. "Done." And he set the egg back in the carton to dry. Loriann was deeply perturbed. Here she is pictured demonstrating the similarities between Quentin's egg and an undyed egg. Quentin maintains that it is elegantly subtle. I tend to agree.

After the egg-dying festivities, Soren awoke, and Loriann set out some eggs in the front room for Soren to find. He immediately found two, sat down, and smacked them joyfully together until they cracked.
-The Easter bunny showed up late Sunday afternoon and left baskets for Abe, Quentin, and Soren. (I guess I haven't mentioned that Quentin's been living with us for the past month. We're planning on having him here until Fall, when he starts school at LDS business college with his (favorite?) sister, Briar.) I think the Easter bunny did a pretty dang good job.