Happy Easter! I didn’t take pictures of the bazillion eggs the bunny left all over the house – or the mess the kids made ripping apart their baskets – because I prefer to just remember the adorable, photogenic parts of our holidays. Even so, you will notice a distinct lack of pictures that include all four children. Did you know four children is a lot of children? It seems like even more than usual when you’re running around a busy farm full of old buildings, tempting mud puddles and tons of baby goats. Plus that’s an exhausting way to spend the morning if you’re a baby, so Finn slept through most of dinner.

But yay for baby goats at Beltane Farm! They also did an egg hunt, and Evan found the golden egg that said “winner” inside. He won the cheese of his choice from the store and picked something called “Duchess”, which was super delicious and not at all what you would expect an 8-year-old to be excited about. My kid is pretty cool.

That last face is Caroline trying the lemon meringue pie we made yesterday. She’s a fan.

Someone shared this article about Grand Designs on Facebook last week and I’ve been binging the episodes available right now. I really need everyone to go watch it so we can talk about how bananas some of these houses are. I can’t even decide which one I love the most, but the very best part of the show is that it follows through ALL THE WAY to the end. The home flipper shows on HGTV drive me crazy when they say “if we sell it, we’ll make $100,000! So far, no offers.” WELL THAT’S NOT REALLY YOUR PROFIT YET, IS IT? The British have weird houses made out of mud, by at least they FOLLOW THROUGH.

That had nothing to do with this post, except it’s what I’ve been watching while I catch up. And now I’m caught up!

Sunday:

Easter bunny haul

He bought this with his birthday gift card and is SO pleased

Just chilling out, feeding myself a bottle as if that’s something I’ve EVER DONE BEFORE

Monday:

Super happy to be shopping with me!

SUPER over shopping with me

Oh you know, just letting the 2 year old run away (E is watching him from behind that tree)

Tuesday:

Gorgeous weather for a beach wedding!

My new glasses are…big

Did nothing else but edit wedding photos because I was so excited

Wednesday:

Staying hyrdrated

Toddler yoga

Lots of naps

Thursday:

Octonaut playdate was VERY much enjoyed by toddlers

This is called Nine Man Morris, they learned at Old Sturbridge Village and E made them a board

Starbucks date

Friday:

Puddle playdate

The futuuuuuuuuuuuure!

The opposite of the future

Saturday:

SQUIREL!

How to escape your children

The opposite of escaping your children

It turns out Grand Design does sometimes give up on people – the mud house never got finished. So I guess I don’t have to feel guilty about being terrible at following through with some things. I think tonight I’ll finish a whole pint of ice cream and celebrate my success. Hashtag goals.

Currently: It’s raining, Linc is sleeping on the couch, Finn is napping, Caroline and Evan are finishing homework, and I’m knocking out busywork while watching this crazy-ass photography show on Netflix called Tales of Light. It’s part nature documentary, part adventure story, party Canon commercial, but the cinematography is gorgeous and it’s great background noise.

Sunday:

Linc was acting like he was going to eat this goat

But then it followed us all over the property, so he didn’t scare it too much

My face on the last day I am 34

Monday:

This is the “before” picture of my vegetable garden

SO EXCITED that Bumpa offered to wear him for a walk

Star Wars obsessed

Tuesday:

Chance of me every being able to do that: less than zero

Blogger baby slept through half the show

But was totally into the candy store

Wednesday:

I pulled the covers off my patio furniture cushions. It didn’t do much good.

Cheese face

That’s not where I left my baby

Thursday:

Doing a little chilly morning photo modeling

YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT SAYS (it’s to go over the baby carrier)

Egg decorating is serious business

Friday:

Doing important grinding work at OSV

Tiny woodpile helper

“Good news! You get to play Jesus in the pageant! Bad news…it’s for Good Friday.”

Saturday:

SO EXCITED TO SEE THE BUNNY

This is adorable

How many times is too many times to watch Moana? (The answer is it’s never too many)

Now I’m only a week behind on iPhone posts! And if it ever stops raining I’ll have actual content to share too – it’s just hard to get my vegetables in the ground when we’re expecting 48 hours of downpours. I also have a baby who refuses to stay put and keeps trying to pull up on things but then getting stuck and crying. That means I have about 3.2 minutes to get stuff done at a time. Turns out I’m not super productive in that timeframe.

I would have more nice things to say about our pretty nice week except it’s snowing right now and I am too annoyed to think ANY nice thoughts.

Sunday:

Guilty chocolate face

Church in their Sunday best

My LulaRoe Easter dress

Monday:

This room is ALWAYS a disaster, but it’s worse mid-purge/clean

Getting muddy

Chillaxing in his new kicks

Tuesday:

Unimpressed

Nap snuggles

Every day they climb this tree

Wednesday:

ORGANIZE ALL THE THINGS

Charge!!!!!

Remember this as the day my house was totally clean before bed

Thursday:

Really exciting box from Thirsties for the #mcmschallenge

Enjoying our last nice weather day

Wild things

Friday:

Happy morning bebeh

I’m just going to steal her

At least I have one kid who sort of looks like me

Saturday:

My favorite tank

Nervous ear piercing face

Evan and Linc are twins

It is now snowing even harder than it was this morning and my mood is not improving. I’m going to go make some bacon and coffee and watch HGTV while Linc destroys the nice clean house I’ve been maintaining so nicely since that picture was taken.

A long time ago on this blog, I would have written 4 posts this week about all the stuff we did. Egg dying! Brunch! The Easter Bunny!

But 2 and a half extra kids later, I’m just pretty excited we actually DID the stuff, rather than the fact that I blogged about it. Or even took pictures of it. I don’t have a single photo of brunch. Is that growth? I can’t tell anymore. I really love the part of blogging that means all these things are documented (because God knows the baby books are all massive failures). But how much longer can I even keep this minimum effort up? Who thought it was a good idea to have so many kids? Will I ever catch up on the ten million things I should be doing right now?

Well that was a lot of unnecessary ennui for what was supposed to be a picture post. Look! Children doing cute things!

Egg dyeing tip #1: Buy all the dye kits on clearance the week after Easter and save them for next year.
Egg dyeing tip #2: Do it while the toddler naps.

Our church Easter egg hunt is a joy. Plenty of eggs for everyone in a small area and everyone is willing to share.

Linc did not yet understand the point of egg hunting.

Our town egg hunt was also fun, if slightly less…generous. Poor Evan’s age group was 6-12 year old and he got 3 eggs. Luckily Linc did a LOT better this time so he had plenty to share.

I absolutely stooped to bribery to get Evan’s face painted. I promised the Easter bunny would bring him something special (because the Easter bunny had already purchased a Lego set).

Our actual Easter day wasn’t such a joy. Linc didn’t sleep at all the night before and needed a nap during church, so I took the big kids while E stayed home with him. Caroline was super mad we didn’t walk to church (it was cold). They kids ate a ton of candy and were a mess by brunch, where Evan ate nothing but carrots and celery. Unfortunately, even if you only eat carrots and celery your meal still costs $22. And Linc screamed every time I got up to get food and left him at the table (surrounded by food, it’s not like he was starving). He also refused to be in any photos, so my cute coordinating children’s outfits were in vain.

BUT but Caroline and Evan happily shouted about how Jesus escaped from the tomb (Evan) and how being aliver is better than being deader (Caroline) during the children’s message at church, so at least we’ve gotten that part right.

The Easter Bunny left eggs all over the house, plus the baskets.