hippity, hoppity, tradition's on its way

we are not your typical easter peeps.
let me expound this thought with a picture:

i am considering sending a copy to heff,
to see if i can star in one of his episodes of "the girls next door."
i think i'd be a front runner.

but anyway.

we don't buy our kids easter outfits, and have never before laid out any baskets, giving a 6 foot bunny all the credit. i don't care if others do these traditions, it just hasn't been my thing.

and here's why:

1) we have pretty much been too poor for the majority of our married life to justify new church clothes for us all at the same time.

2) i am too lazy to get all worked up with easter baskets for a little boy who was too young to care/know what was going on in the first place.

that being said.

i've been feeling a bit like i am a bad mom.

and here's why:

1) i never decorate for the holidays. even last christmas, we didn't even put up a tree because we knew we'd be in utah for like 4 weeks & not come home until january. bah humbug.

2) i don't do the "make everything green for st. patrick's day," or "make heart shaped sugar cookies for valentine's day." it's not that i don't have intentions to do it. i'm always thinking, ooh, that would be fun. but it's the preparation that somehow gets me. i just don't prepare ahead. then, suddenly it's valentine's day eve and i've got nothin'. so what's a girl to do? that's right, pretend like she doesn't care enough to do it. (secret's out...she does care.)

this never before bothered me, until i realized that as our own little family, aside from our nightly ritual of everyone taking their multivitamins after dinner,
(FYI: i take dora, caleb takes sponge bob, and ben gets stuck with rugrats. don't feel badly for him, he deserves it.)
we have pretty much zero traditions.

and that bothered me.

so for easter ben & i decided to change things up a bit. i shopped around, and after realizing that we still can't afford new sunday clothes, got caleb a non-church shirt for $5.99, and nothing for the rest of us.

but i did raid the dollar section at target and got some stuff to fill caleb's basket (that's right, i said a basket! be amazed). because let's just put it out there, the kid doesn't like candy so much. he would be much happier with a peeled cucumber and a stick of cheese. so he got some stickers, a couple of new books and play-doh eggs.

what did leah get in her basket? some of her own diapers (unused, we're not that bad), some of her own butt cream, a little stuffed duck that we were given as a gift, and a little milky way bunny for her parents to share.

the best part of it all is caleb's newfound obsession with easter egg hunts. the eggs are no longer filled with anything...in fact, they haven't been for the last 12 hunts we've done since saturday. but he doesn't care. it's the thrill of the chase--er, the hunt.

and i must say, after seeing the happiness in caleb's eyes when he found his basket & dollar store items, it is one that will probably be happening again next year.

and a tradition is born.

though i'm sure that next year we still won't be shelling out $22 bucks for new easter clothes. so i guess that's another tradition we will keep. but the tradition of being poor isn't necessarily one that i would like to carry on throughout the rest of my life.

you thought this was the end of the post, didn't you? it would make a lovely ending. however...

after we got home from a delicious easter dinner with our friends the goldings, we realized that we have never taken the "traditional easter picture" that everyone seems to take. so here is our attempt:


fancy, isn't it? notice the close proximity to which caleb's leg is touching leah's. i am amazed he has a half-smile on his face because i can see his fingers are clenched together in fear.


and leah's little headband? yep, not something she normally wears. however she doesn't have much hair & so we thought she'd look more like a lady with it on. that is until i pulled it off at the end of the night & saw that not only had it left a huge dent in her head, it had rubbed off a patch of the little hair that she had. so we probably won't be doing that again.

a happy easter to one and all.