The Easter Bonnet

I was all set to post before and after pictures of the great yard extravaganza of 2013, but the boss said he wasn’t ready for them just yet.  He also decided late Sunday afternoon/evening, as it was getting dark, that he should probably put down a layer of topsoil and do a little seeding.  So now it really doesn’t look ready for pictures and I guess we will have to wait a week or two longer.  I know, you are terribly devastated aren’t you!  Waiting to see someone’s cleaned up yard can be torture.

But I do have some other cute pictures to share.  With Miss Mattie being away at school all day, I don’t get nearly as many photo opportunities or fun stories from her.  So with her being home this past week, I took the opportunity of her being  with me all day long to take some pictures.  Her 8-year-old pictures should have been done back in January, but I was a little busy back then and really, between you and me, she hasn’t changed a whole lot in the past 2 months.  Here is a little sample from our photo session:

When looking over these later, I recognize this girl, she is familiar to me…but wow!  When did Matilda Belle get to be 8 years old?  She seems so old!  And her hair is getting so incredibly long!  I’m just not sure what to make of this whole growing up thing.

We usually go all out with our EAster wear on the Sabbath before.  I have always enjoyed the tradition of getting a new “Easter Dress” every spring and even in college and my first years of marriage, I made sure that I had a new, pastel frock.  And of course with the kids, I take my easter frocking very seriously.  This is last years Easter picture, the kids in all their pastel glory.

Easter 2012

And this is the year before.

Easter 2011

But this year, I just go behind.  Personally, I am blaming it on Easter coming while it’s still the tail end of winter.  Nothing feels right about wearing your winter coat over your Easter dress.  And then Lila got sick on us and it just seemed like the best idea to postpone the Baughman Family Easter Wear Sabbath.  So stay tuned for that.

But we did have our first, annual Easter brunch, the Baughman Easter Bonnet.  There are tons of egg hunts, special brunches and that sort of thing here in the Memphis area, but none of them are actually on Easter.  And they are almost all of Sabbath.  We have wanted to do something or take the kids to something that made the day feel like a real holiday, like it was something special.  So we decided that we would just have a little shindig ourselves.  The theme was pastels, of course, and the ladies were encouraged to wear their big “church clothes/ Kentucky Derby-esque” bonnets.  We planned to have a little brunch, an egg hunt and maybe a craft, then follow it all with the Resurrection Eggs.

I love the Resurrection Eggs.  Each little egg is a different color and each one holds a different little emblem that pertains to the story of Jesus’ crucifixion. For example, there’s a little donkey in one explaining how Jesus rode into the city on the back of a donkey.  Then a small rock in another one, representing the stone that was rolled away from the tomb that Jesus was buried in. And my favorite, it gets me a little choked up every time and the kids laugh at me, but the last egg is white and it’s empty.  It’s empty to represent the empty tomb and that Jesus has defeated Satan and sin.  It’s a great, hands-on way to help children really understand what Easter is all about, and I would encourage everyone to get their own dozen.

So even though it was cold and dreary on Easter Sunday, we still had a lot to celebrate and the brunch would definitely still go on.

The girls staring at their brother who actually wanted the plush My Little Pony, we blame Chelsea’s 2 week stay with us on that. 🙂

I never found a cool tree branch to hang them from, but this worked well enough

 

Orange Juice

Yummy!

The Nelson 3, Jess is currently two for one

Ben showing me his eggs…loved the purple Ben

Tilda and her loot

Luke and Mattie hunting

The grown-ups

The crew, Reese is wearing the turtle suit, it was close enough to pastel

Lovies from Aunt Shannie

Photographing my easter bonnet

Chris and Shannie

Mums and Lila Bird

The Thomas Two

Us girls

We had a lovely time celebrating our risen saviour with some of our closest friends…..And I really like my new hat.

 

 

The Turtle

I have shared before about some of my wonderful Goodwill finds and if you aren’t checking out your local Goodwill store, chances are you are missing out on some real treasures.  I won’t tell you everything that I have found there lately because a) you will just be jealous and 2)I like to keep a little mystery in my life.  But one thing that I will share with you is just too funny to keep to myself.

So Mumsey and Poppy were in town this weekend.  They arrived late Thursday night just in time to enjoy the last day of Mattie’s spring break.  Reese and Poppy had big plans to go to Harbor Freight to try to find a tarp for the sandbox, and us girls, well we were headed to Goodwill to see what we might find.  Mom loves to hunt for books and I just love the hunt.  I believe that I have also mentioned Lila’s love for her blanket and how that specific one is no longer readily available.  I thought that Goodwill might be a good place to find a CArter’s blanket cast off and with is being pre-owned, it might also have experienced the same amount of washings.  It was a thought…I didn’t find another blanket but I found something just as wonderful.

A turtle costume.  And not some cheesy, plasticky turtle costume either.  No, this one was plush and cozy and even had a detachable shell.  I really had no idea what I  might do with it, Halloween is rather far away still and none of my kids have really voiced any particular interest in ever being a turtle, but for $1.99, I couldn’t leave it there.  If nothing else I would ask Holly, our kindergarten teacher, if she might have some use for it.  But no matter what, I had to have it.

I came home all excited about my reptile find and showed it to Reese expecting him to laugh at it and then be on his way.  That was not what happened.  What happened was that he immediately put the “tuttle” suit on and kept it on for the rest of the day.  The rest of the day turned into the night.  Sabbath morning, while eating breakfast he asked me if he could wear his new outfit to church.  Before giving me a chance to even consider an answer, he reminded me that “Tuttles are nature and Jesus made the nature”.  That is correct Reese and for that quick thinking, I almost considered it.  I had just about decided that should he really get stubborn about it, I might just slap a bow tie on him and call it good.  Some things just aren’t worth a fight and I figured God would find it humorous.  After me suggesting that his outfit might be a bit of a distraction from church and people might have a hard time listening because they were too busy watching him in his outfit, he went ahead and changed into normal church clothes.  Little did he know that he was just one little whine away though from getting to wear his special suit.  A turtle suit is kind of Eastery, right?

As soon as we got home, the turtle suit came back on and stayed on for the rest of the day.

The turtle ate dinner with us.

The turtle started out on a bike ride, but his tail kept rubbing on the wheel.

We decided that a ride in the wagon was probably better.

The turtle suit came off for bed, but only because the boy was convinced by Mumsey that it might be too stinky to wear to our Easter brunch the next day if he wore it all night.

Before he came back downstairs though, the boy and his shell were back together again.

The little turtle even hunted easter eggs in the backyard with his non-reptilian friends.

Please excuse the “grab” he said he didn’t want the legs of his suit to get wet and was trying to hold it up. We only halfway believe that.

And after everyone went home, the turtle went to Kroger with Mumsey and I to pick up a few things for dinner.

Today, the turtle suit got a bath and spent the day outside, hanging over the railing to dry, ready to be worn again on Tuesday.