good friday...

The Friday before Easter, I thought I'd dress the kids up in their Easter clothes, and then take them out back for a non-frenzied, non-stressful photo shoot. I figured that Easter morning would be super rushed after finding all the eggs which the Easter Bunny had hidden, and then going on the clue hunt that I had come up with to find the baskets. It just seems that after all the festivities, and breakfast, and getting myself and everyone ready...we end up running into church 5 minutes late. Pictures always take the back burner. Unfortunately, my plan was thwarted by two very uncooperative children. Look how grumpy they were. I think there are at least 2 or 3 pictures where Ruby is sticking her tongue out at me. And Asher, oh Asher...couldn't you have cracked even the slightest of smiles in just one of these? Apparently smiling was just too much to ask of either of them. The only happy picture you'll see here...is sadly, the one I took of myself.

Enough already mom...

I wasn't too worried, however, about my less than perfect pictures...because immediately following our shoot, we'd be off to the mall to get pictures with the Easter Bunny himself. Surely I'd be able to get a few good (smiley) shots, especially with the help of John (who was getting off work early), and my mother-in law (who was in town for the weekend). I had been talking it up to Ruby for at least two or three days, and she was pretty much beside herself. All she could talk about was how she was going to sit on the Easter Bunny's lap, and then give him a great big hug. We left at 4:30, and needed to be back by 6:30 for Judy's surprise 70th birthday party (which she had no clue about). Surely 2 hours would be sufficient time to see the Easter Bunny, right? Well of course...that is - if your baby doesn't have a major blow-out (which explodes out the back of his diaper and half way up his back, seeping through his grey pinstripe pants and pink and white dress shirt), requiring a detour through Dillard's to clean everything up, change his diaper, buy new clothes, and re-dress him. Totally my luck. By the time we made it to see the Easter Bunny, the line was outrageously long, and moving slower than molasses. We waited in it for about 30 minutes, before I noticed the sign which read we ask that you please refrain from using your own camera. What? I always take my own camera, and it's never been a problem. We decided that if we continued waiting in the line, we'd never be back to Lori's by 6:30 anyway...so we ditched the Easter Bunny altogether. I mostly felt bad for Ruby, who like her mother, had been envisioning this day...for several days. We thought we could appease her disappointment (and mine), by treating ourselves to a chocolate chip cookie from Paradise Bakery. We were sitting in the food court, relishing the delightfulness of our wonderful treats, when John, oh bless you John, came up with the most ingenious idea. Just mere feet from where we were sitting, was a large, double-decker carousel...and on this carousel, right there in plain view, among all the horses and ponies, was a Rabbit...or as John so cleverly called it, the EASTER BUNNY! He had Ruby convinced that this was in fact, the Easter Bunny we had planned on seeing all along...and once again, she was beside herself...not just because she got to see the Easter Bunny FINALLY, but because she got to ride on the Easter Bunny, with Grandma Judy (hiding from the camera)at her side. Very few things could be better than that.



She doesn't look very happy in these, does she? It probably has something to do with the fact that mom's always shoving that darn camera in her face.