The zoo egg hunt for MaryVic was at 12:30 so we went to Shoney’s first for breakfast. I managed to forget almost everything. Greg remembered the theater tickets before we were out of the neighborhood. I still left behind the zoo carousel tokens and my zoo pass. I had changed purses earlier in the week and didn’t realize they were not there until we were at the zoo. We have a family pass for the zoo and they let us all in anyway.We parked in an undeveloped area of the zoo back beyond the anteater houses and the zoo greenhouse. The zoo entrance for members was right at the elephants and giraffees exhibits. MaryVic put in her bid for a giraffe purse but was distracted by heading on into the zoo for her egg hunt. Daddy found rabbit ears for her and William at the radio station tent. MaryVic wanted to see the Shoney Bear and gave him a HUGE hug. We then tried to take a picture with the Easter Bunny but he went on break. Face painting seemed like a good idea and MaryVic loves it. Unfortunately it was one person and there was no way she’d get her turn before the egg hunt. Poppa and Daddy distracted her with a carousel ride. Poppa rode with her for his first carousel ride of the year. Then it was time for the easter egg hunt madness. Grandmomma, William and I had staked out a spot at the front. It became crowded quickly. Many more people attended than the previous year. While MaryVic was riding the carousel, E.B. passed through and high-fived William. He came by again but it was at a run. They did get to pet the ostrich before the egg hunt started.MaryVic picked up a few eggs. She started to only get three but went back to get more and Greg was able to get some good pictures. Egg hunting with William was more of an exercise. I had to carry him out and lower him down at an angle so that he could grab some eggs. Take those to Grandmomma and then go back and grab some more.It did not matter how many eggs a child picked up. Everyone got the same treat bag for the eggs. Off to the treat tents and everyone got a treat bag. Luckily William was willing to turn in his eggs after watching sister do it. Candy, easter egg ears, bubbles!, toy and candy! They were allowed a piece of candy and put on the easter egg ears for a minute.There was still some time before we needed to head to the theater so we took MaryVic to the playground. Grandmomma chased her around some, Daddy chased her around some. She played Momma knock over in the blue toddler area where William was getting some toddler time. She gets this look on her face, ‘I’m going to get you’ determination, and runs full force at you. The key is to start rolling back before she hits you otherwise you are going to get hurt.After play we headed off for MaryVic’s surprise, the Nashville Childrens Theater to see Go Dog Go! (http://www.nashvillechildrenstheatre.org/yellow/dog.htm). It was a cool performance of the P.D. Eastman book with actors pretending to be dogs and all over the stage. Some slapstick humor, audience involvement, and nice music. It was very energetic and colorful. Everyone enjoyed although MaryVic was very disappointed that no dragon was in it. She saw the theater’s dragon on the tickets and next month they are doing The Reluctant Dragon. Between the two she was quite sure a dragon should have been around somewhere! Both kids fell asleep on the way home. William woke up enough at home for Greg to carry him in and put him down in the den. We took it easy somewhat for the rest of the evening. Ordered pizza and then realized during clean up that we had not dyed eggs with MaryVic. What was going to be a quick activity took a couple of hours as Poppa determined we didn’t have enough eggs and we experimented with vinegar and without vinegar in the dye.William was frustrated not to be able to help.

MaryVic had to look at the eggs every 3 seconds during the process which dragged out the dying somewhat although Poppa was able to distract her by threatening to eat the eggs. She was very good and gentle but it didn’t last as it became late and she became tired.

Eventually everyone was totally worn out and had to retire for the night. MaryVic did want to bowl on the Wii (NO!) but eventually settled down and went to sleep.

Wake up being poked in the eyes, watch a 2 year old in a cast and a 4 year old go hyper on Chocolate and Candy.

Take said Hypers to a quite nice all you can eat Family Style restuarant for lunch

Return home and tried to do ‘QUIET’ time.

What could go wrong?

Actually, very little.

William woke bright and decided that Daddy really needed to be awake. POKE. Thankfully, my eyes WERE closed when this happened, so I was able to retain my eyesight. With little sounds coming from anywhere else in the house, Daddy and William watched a bit of the Formula 1 race that was on earlier that morning. Soon however, the sounds of V8 engines at 19000 rpm was drowned out by the sound of 4 year old feet running back and fro… The door slams open:

Dad! Someone snuck into the house and LEFT somethings!

It’s time to get moving.

I’m not going to describe the faces, there are pictures for that.

And really, there were better ones than that.

Remember the Hyper bit from above?

Ok, get dressed, get the kids dressed, and get to Monell’s before EVERYONE else in the city does. We succeed for the most part. William wore his finest.. although he wasn’t initially thrilled at the idea of leaving the Candy and having to put all sorts on.

Brunch was great, everyone (except the Kids, who refused to eat anything more than a roll) was stuffed, so it was definitely time to head home for quiet time. Strangely enough, even though they had plenty of sugar and starches, the kids refused to take a nap.
Papa and Grandma headed home, we headed around the pond for a ‘get out of the house’ walk, realized it was COLD out, and didn’t dawdle.
It wasn’t as busy of a day as I imagined it would be from the rest of the weekend (See Saturday if Jeff posts it), but frankly, that’s OK.
It was a good day.

She was happy to be home although at the same time she did not want to leave Grandmommas. We are starting to see her have some difficulty between 2 good choices and coming to the realization that you can not have both. She had a lot of fun at Grandmommas but missed everyone, even William. He was very excited to see her again.

Before everyone settled down, we loaded up and went to the Chophouse for lunch. The children mainly ate the sweet biscuits and butter. MaryVic would eat a bite of mac and cheese in exchange for playing with Momma each bite. The grown-ups made sure we had pennies for MaryVic and William to toss them in the waterfall after the meal. The coins are donated to the local Mercy Childrens Clinic.

We returned home for William’s nap time but were not lucky enough to have him fall asleep in the car. Apparently the arrival of the grandparents and MaryVic was too much excitement. He fell asleep Wednesday and Thursday while watching Curious George but not today. We had our first post-grandparents conflict with MaryVic who refused to settle down and started fussing over a toy. She and I did a short timeout together in her room.

After nap / quiet time was over, I loaded William up for a walk around the neighborhood. At first MaryVic didn’t want to go but she changed her mind. She rode her bike with training wheels while Daddy and I walked William. We did have a slight disaster with the bike helmet as I pinched her trying to get it on. Don’t you hate those pinches by clips like these! I bowed out and let Daddy put the helmet on her after she calmed down.

We had a nice time at the pond. No geese or ducks were present. We threw some cheerios in to see if any fish would bite. I guess they are still hiding at the bottom of the pond, waiting for the weather to make it’s mind up. Greg took pictures that are posted on the gallery web site.

I walked William around the pond and refereed Mary’s ‘Knock Daddy Over’ game. She starts at a certain point and then runs full force at him while he takes pictures. He changed locations so it was a challenge for her to get him. William became fussy so I got him to playing catch the willow tree branches which were blowing in the wind. He became really tickled while trying to grab them.

On the way home Grandmomma came back from a last minute Easter store run. We met her back at the house and MaryVic decided we needed to play ball. Greg put pesticide out on the lawn Thursday night as his part in the ‘great ant war’ so playing ball meant going back to the pond. We re-organized, blew up a giant rabbit, and everyone headed back to the pond.

We used a spot with three trees close enough to each other to be bases. Bases are a pretty loose concept to four year olds. We played a combination of baseball, chase and tag. First MaryVic hitting the ball off the tee and being chased around the bases, which evolved to all trees in the area in no certain order. Mom played tag first then Daddy took a turn. We also had turns at bat with MaryVic pitching. Grandmomma and William cheered from the sidelines.

MaryVic tired eventually and William became fussy as he wanted to play ball. There was a really sweet moment as MaryVic gave William the ball. It didn’t last long as she came to realize that he couldn’t pitch the ball to her from Grandmomma’s lap on the ground. “William, I Am Over Here!” It started to become cool and dark so we rounded her up to some protest and headed home.

Greg carried William home and he loved and played with Daddy all the way, peeking back at us. It was a lovely time and the kids had no problems falling asleep later in the evening!

It rained pretty heavily here. The power flickered a few times and finally did not come back on. William would screech everytime it went off. I gave him a little flashlight and he was happy. He amused himself playing with it and his little farmhouse.

The picture is terrible but you can see he is smiling. The power was only off for about 20 minutes.

Once the lights came back on, he did a little reading.

The one outing was taking Greg to lunch. We ate at the Cool Cafe in Franklin, a local meat and three, http://www.coolcafefranklin.com/. The portions are huge and the food is home-cooked good if you aren’t a two year old. William took one look at his mac and cheese and said that’s not Kraft! He did have fun demolishing a roll.

He kept trying to fall asleep after we dropped Greg off and were heading home. Nu-kote is less than 10 minutes away from the house. I kept having to shout his name to keep him semi awake. I was able to successfully move him from the van to a bed where he fell asleep.

While he was asleep, I got our one box of Easter stuff down. He really enjoyed the Easter lollipop stand.

MaryVic called us Monday night to say good-night. We had pictures in the morning from Grandmomma showing that she was keeping them busy. She fell asleep on the way down and hit the ground running once they got home. Told her Poppa she had already done her quiet time and wanted to go to lunch at El Rancho.Playing ball with the PINK bat,

Decorating for Easter,

And playing ball again.

Alphabet story time at the library on the letter ‘Y’. Mary is in a pink shirt in the middle.

William was more fascinated with the playdough swiss knife from home.

They both enjoyed craft and coloring.

MaryVic’s almost finished Yak. She colored some more and then gave the picture to Mrs. Susan. Gave me a start later in the van when she asked for it and I couldn’t find it. She was upset until I remembered and reminded her that she gave it away.

The bouncy at the Polk Place Easter Egg hunt before Daddy and William got there.

Saying hello to the Easter Bunny.

William at the zoo on Thursday

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MaryVic on the zoo carousel, riding the Kangaroo.

After walking around to see the animals, a strawberry ice cream hits the spot!

MaryVic is ready to visit the zoo playground on Friday. I said we didn’t have to go see the animals.

William is watching his sister run down the snake.

Mary comes out smiling at him and me.

MaryVic riding the carousel again on Friday. She choose to ride a wolf this time. Mommy went on the carousel with her.

William sat on the sidelines and would wave like mad every time we passed by and yelled at him. It was fun to see him light up.

It was a difficult decision to go with MaryVic and leave William to watch but he did fine. She had been really scared Thursday when she rode by herself. William doesn’t usually like to go on the carousel. Maybe when there is someone else with us, I’ll sit with him on the bench to get him used to the motion.

I didn’t have as many pictures as I thought. Most were pretty old but fun to look at such as: