Goodnight

Before going to bed last night, I snuck into the boys' room to check on them and see those sweet faces one more time for the day. I thought something seemed odd when I first walked in while my eyes were adjusting to the darkness. There appeared to be a foot sticking up near William's head. I was thinking that there is no way that could be comfortable for him! Upon further investigation, I realized that Stokes had crawled into bed with William at some point during the evening and both of them were totally asleep. I know a lot of other multiples like being near each other and sleeping in the same bed, but I had never seen it with these 3. Sometimes Stokes will get into William's crib to play in the mornings, but never to sleep. How totally sweet is this?!?!?!? I had to get a picture to remember this moment.

Stokes and William in Williams' crib

A few hours later, Stokes woke up and was crying and Thomas went in there and put him back in his own bed so that he wouldn't disturb William. 

I wonder if we'll see this slumber party action on a regular basis moving forward. I can only assume that getting beds will make it even easier, and wonder what will happen when we make that transition. All I know is that I love my boys being snuggled up close together. 

He is Risen - Easter 2016

Happy Easter! Despite rainy, overcast weather, Easter day proved to be a sweet and joyful day again this year. It's really amazing when you think of the significance of such a day and what it means for the world. Awesome. Just awesome.

The Peerys on Easter Sunday!

The Peerys on Easter Sunday!
<Blurry>

The Easter bunny came with some treats for the boys!  We had their Easter baskets set on the stairs for them to see right after they got up. Their baskets had swim trunks, sunglasses, toothbrushes, Hot Wheels cars, Peeps and some jelly beans.

Stokes came down first and was excited
to see his treats!

Pump the breaks there, little fella!

William checking out his Easter basket

The Hot Wheels cars were the first things
they went for.

Ryan liked his egg!

After a little Easter basket unveiling, we had breakfast with these cute little bunnies.

Wearing the bunny sunglasses his MaSha gave him.

I thought it would be fun to do a mini Easter egg hunt around the yard before church, but it was raining (as you can see through the window) so we just hid eggs around the downstairs and tried to get the boys to hunt for them. William was kinda sorta into it this time.

Discovering that the eggs had
jelly beans inside!

We were very sneaky and tried to hide
them really well so the boys would really
have to search for them...NOT.

Jelly beans - YUMMMY!

William found a few eggs and emptied them into his bucket. Stokes quickly came over to try the jelly beans as well! They both loved the jelly beans. After collecting about 4 eggs or so though, the game was over. Then he started dumping out the Easter basket - jelly beans and all. Not cool. Thomas and I ended up just picking up the rest of the eggs. Haha! And we still have a lot of jelly beans and Easter candy at our house. We don't let the boys have too much at a time.

Loving those jelly beans!

We got the boys ready for church and I had to take some pictures before we left the house. In case you think these outfits look familiar, you'd be right. They're the same jon jons the boys wore last year. Last year we had to have the buttons at the shoulders taken in and this year we just let the buttons back out. Two for the price of one - I'm all about it!

Stokes

Ryan

William

Happy boys!
Stokes, Ryan and William

Since it was raining, we put them in rain boots to go to church. It was a win/win. First of all, they love their rain boots. Second, I didn't want to get their socks and shoes wet and dirty.

Ready for church!

 Seersucker dudes. Thomas was wearing a seersucker suit so I had to get a picture of all of them.

I wanted to get a picture on the front porch, but as soon as we got the little guys outside, they went running! Of course, Stokes ended up sitting down on the wet, yucky mulch and got a big spot on the bottom of his jon jons - oh well! It did come out in the wash, though!

So cute with the azaleas!

On the porch with my little guys!

We actually made it to church early (gasp!) so I knew I wanted to get a family picture in front of this beautiful cross with fresh flowers and we had time to do it before our service began. We had some sweet girls behind us in the line that took this picture and even were making noises and faces to get the boys to look. I wish I had thought to take the diaper bag off my arm, but oh well! Don't you love the rain boots look for Easter?!?! LOL.

Happy Easter!

We put Stokes and William in the nursery and took Ryan with us into the service. He did great! And he looked so handsome. I kept feeling like people were looking over at him and thinking how beautiful he is. Proud mama! As usual, the service at our church was phenomenal. I love how the choir goes all out on special Sundays and the message that our pastor delivered was once again on point and so relevant. I just love our church. There's something really magical about church on Easter Sunday.

After church we ate a quick lunch and got the boys down for their naps. During naps, Thomas and I watched The Passion of the Christ. Wow - that one was....tough. I had never seen it before. It was, quite honestly, hard to watch. It really tore me up. I think I will take a break from that one for a while. I'm glad that I saw it, and it definitely made me think and feel, but just wow.

To get back on a happier note, once the boys woke up, we popped popcorn and watched Toy Story!

William and Stokes with Dada
& popcorn!

After a lazy afternoon watching movies, we had a nice Easter dinner with ham, hashbrown casserole, asparagus, watergate salad and rolls. Yum! Then before starting the bedtime routine, it was time to carry on an Easter tradition and pip eggs.

All of our dyed Easter eggs - ready to be pipped

Stokes and William got in on the fun. William actually took his egg a little too far. After it would crack, he would continue to squeeze it and squeeze it some more until it would completely fall apart, leaving quite a mess on the floor for Mama to clean up! Little rascal!

Thomas's egg lost our 1:1 battle

Who's first?!?!

I was helping them learn the "art of the egg pip"

Ready.....go!

The champion egg!!!

It only took a few minutes to finish pipping both ends of all of our eggs. The boys were still in goofy, playful moods and had some fun with Dada.

Although the rain and dreary weather kept us indoors most of the day, a day spent with family is wonderful, especially when you add in the overwhelming joyful significance of such a day! It was emotional (watching the Passion movie), it was lazy (watching Toy Story), it was fun (pipping eggs), it was inspirational (church), it was silly (running around in the yard and playing with brothers), it was sweet (eating Easter candy) and it was beautiful (for all of those reasons and more). Our main takeaway from Easter Sunday is this: Nothing Is Impossible. Believe it. 

Eggventure & dyeing Easter eggs

On the Saturday before Easter, we attended the Eggventure community event that our church hosts. We missed it last year because it conflicted with Aunt Wendy's Annual Easter Egg Hunt so I was happy this year that these two socials took place on different weekends. This thing is HUGE! The entire community is invited, for FREE, and there are a lot of people that come! There was so much to see and do. This was our first foray into Eggventure, so we'll be more prepared and know more about what to expect for next year. 

First item on agenda: take a picture of all 3 boys in their cute little Easter-colored polo shirts! We found a spot on the bleachers to set the diaper bag down and snap a picture (or 20). 

Ryan, Stokes, William

Then we headed upstairs to check out the games! They had all sorts of games up there, but this one room was geared towards the preschool aged kids and they had several different games set up.

Egg toss into the cups

He just wanted to throw and catch a
big beach ball they had in the room!

Bag toss!

After we played games for a little while, we meandered on out and found a face painting station. Stokes was king of the face paint. He ended up with an orange tiger paw on one cheek, a pink football on the other cheek and green and red tiger paws on each hand. What a stinker! William acted like he wanted his face painted and sat in the chair for a second, but was never quite comfortable with the idea and bowed out before the painting got started. Ryan got a football on his cheek and loved it!

Stokes with his orange tiger paw

Ryan getting a football painted

After face painting, an egg hunt was about to start, so Thomas and I grabbed the Easter buckets, and the boys' hands and headed out to the preschool egg hunt area. They had all the kids sit and listen to the Easter story before the egg hunt began.

The boys "listening" to the Easter story. William put his
Easter basket on his head - such a clown!

Dada with William and Ryan

The reading of the Easter story

Time to hunt eggs!

They were pretty much heading in opposite directions. Nice.

No interest in picking up eggs...

...but he was interested in getting tickled!!!

After the (once again) unsuccessful Easter egg hunt, we went back inside for some bounce house action. They had several bounce houses set up and divided kids by age range so that the littles wouldn't get too trampled by the big kids. We put Stokes and William in the toddler bounce house and they had fun! They actually had just as much fun climbing in and out as they did actually bouncing.

Helen and Connor were there, too!

They had this massive slide bouncey thing and although my boys needed help getting up to the top, they were obsessed. The issue with this one was that there was a line to slide down. This may have been their first introduction to a line - it didn't go so well. It seemed to be a difficult concept to explain that they had to wait their turn to go down the slide. This required a lot of tight gripped hand holding to prevent them from cutting in line each and every time. Once they got up to the front of the line and taken to the top of the slide by a sweet volunteer, Stokes would just slide down with no delay, but William would stay at the top for a minute needing to be coaxed a little, and liked to slide down on his belly. Hilarious! It was hard to pull them away from this slide when it was time to sit down and have a snack.

Go  Stokes! See William up there at the top?
Not quitttteeee ready to come down yet.

Having a ball

Stokes hopping up while William
slides down on his tummy

Thomas, Stokes, Van and William

Yep, that's right - the Thomas's came, too! Here's
Landon and Grayson

What a fun-filled morning! After we got home, fed lunch and let the boys nap, we decided it was time to dye Easter eggs. Last year, we didn't really involve this boys in this "craft". This had the potential to get really messy, so although the weather wasn't all that great, we took this activity outside.

Our eggs and our dye

Stokes kept grabbing eggs and putting them in the blue cup.
He was too fast for us to stop him!

Waiting patiently for the eggs to get dyed.

Stokes was really having fun with it

We each got one monogrammed egg. :)
We let the boys pick their colors.

Finished product!!!!