Happy Hunting and Happy Easter

I can hardly believe that its April. Luckily for us, April brought a week of beautiful weather in the 70's and a chance to plant some flowers. So its actually starting to feel like Spring around here.
This week has been very busy. On Tuesday Chris started his new job. That's right. He quit his old job and he is now working with my "occasional boss" at ING. Unfortunately, our boss had to go out of town to take care of her mother, so Chris hasn't actually been at work with her. But he's been keeping busy just the same. On Wednesday Chris had to represent his office (by himself) at a Chamber of Commerce Event. I went too since I work(ed) there, and between the two of us we put together a pretty awesome booth. We handed out a bunch of his business cards, flyers and did some really good networking. And it didn't hurt that we had the cutest salesman in the world to help us.

I made him a little name tag- it says "Tanner Herb- ING- Ask my dad how to make your future easier" We got tons of comments on that - it was a pretty good way to advertise.
I also had to work on Tuesday- so it was really busy. Tanner of course loves going to work because our office connects with my parent's law office. So they come to play with him all the time.
Tanner before work

Sometimes Tanner gets to help Nanny at her desk

And other times he just gets to play with Papa

On Thursday Tanner and played outside and planted flowers. He really liked playing with the grass. It was so funny to watch him discover his environment. Babies are so amazing!


Then Thursday night we dyed just about a million eggs. OK-really there was 72 eggs- but it felt like a million because I had already stuffed 72 plastic eggs earlier that day. Tanner found the whole egg business quite amusing.


After only smashing two eggs, I managed to get him to let go of his eggs.

On Friday I made Tanner's Easter bucket. I realize he is a little young for an Easter basket- but I couldn't resist. Here is his basket stuffed with plastic eggs.

On Saturday we had our FIRST ANNUAL EASTER EGG HUNT. We had so much fun.
Here is the food table.

We had fruit skewers with pineapple, bananas, strawberries, kiwi, apples, and grapes. Fruit dip, a vegetable plate with ranch dip, finger sandwiches, cupcakes, and drinks.
Here are the peep cupcakes

Easter Egg Cupcakes- Chris decorated these for me. And he did dang good too!

We had the party on our back porch. The entire porch was decked out in Chinese lanterns and flower garland. I totally spaced getting pictures of the porch, so here is the corner of the porch...you can get the idea.

The kids hunted for Easter eggs and then they got to choose a prize for finding so many eggs. We didn't really count- we just let every kid get a prize.
Then the kids got to destroy the pinata with a baseball bat. Which is always entertaining. It was really fun.
I loved watching Tanner. Since he doesn't crawl yet, I would just plop him down in front of an egg on the ground and then he'd grab it and shove it in his mouth.
Here is Tanner with his favorite plastic egg.

Here is Tanner chilling on his Aunt's lap in his Easter outfit.

And Tanner getting into his booty- he made a haul. He got a total of 4 eggs. Unfortunatly- the older kids were way faster than he was.

I had to get a family picture of course.

We had so much fun and thanks to my mom- cleaning up afterwards was easy. She is so awesome. After everyone left I put Tanner down for a nap. (Oh yeah- Tanner is able to go to sleep on his own now- I just lay him down in his crib with his binky and Gerald and he goes to sleep- SO AWESOME- makes nap time so much easier)
Then I was able to relax. Tanner went to bed by 7:00 because he was so exhausted from his big day and Chris and I were able to snuggle up and watch a movie. (We watched "The Blind Side" and it was really good)
This morning we let Tanner get into his easter basket. He just pulled everything out and tossed it around him on our bed. He wasn't really into this year, but I can just imagine how different it will be next year.
Tanner stuffed Easter Basket

Tanner digging into his bucket/basket

Here is Tanner thinking- "Yeah- Easter is pretty cool"


Oh and next year I'm totally doing this. I saw this on another blog but I think the idea is so cute that I'm going to do it with Tanner.
Each year this lady gives her kids a little package of brightly colored jelly beans.

The day before Easter they got outside and plant them in the ground. Then on Easter morning they go outside and they find...

So cute right?

Anyways, today we watched General Conference at my parent's house and then we had Easter dinner together. Conference was really good and it really helped center my thoughts on my Savior. I've been thinking a lot about the resurrection lately and what an amazing event with eternal consequences it is. I'm so grateful for my Savior and his love for all of us. He faced an agonizing death on the cross and then rose three days later, allowing us to each do the same. He loved us so much.
One of the speakers today mentioned how much our Savior and Heavenly Father love us. He likened it to the love a mother feels for her children. The only thing I could think of was “There is no way anyone could love Tanner more than I do...” But I know our Heavenly Father and Savior do. It seems impossible, but I KNOW it’s true. I'm so grateful for the inconceivable amount of love that they have for each of us, despite the many mistakes we make. I know that I make mistakes on a daily, if not hourly basis, but because of my Savior I can fix those mistakes. What an amazing gift. I hope I can teach Tanner the significance of the gift our Savior gave to us on Easter. I feel blessed everyday to have my boys and I know that I owe everything to my Father in Heaven and my beloved big Brother! Happy Easter everyone!