Easter!

This year we continued an Easter tradition from daddy's childhood: picture-based Easter-egg hunting. Instead of scattering eggs and leaving him to wander everywhere, it's a linear hunt. One clue leads to the next clue, to the next clue, and so on, until finally the Easter basket! Each egg has a candy and another clue.

Brock wasn't really sure what was going on for the first two eggs. I thought I'd served up the easiest picture first. He had some trouble, and then as soon as he found it, he just wanted to do something else. We coaxed him to decipher the next clue. Then he wanted to do something else. Something clicked after the third egg. Perhaps the prospect of procuring infinite gummis and jelly beans finally crossed his mind, or maybe the connection of the pictures to the placement just needed some time, but he was hooked. Here's a video of the middle of the hunt:

Eventually the basket was found...

It was a beautiful day so we went to a very busy park. Brock did play on the slides for a little bit, but spent the majority of his time picking "carrots." (They are last year's fall flowers, so pot-bound when the city plants them, that they come up with the shape of the planting-pot still perfectly root-crusted.) Brock is a very avid botanist, so he's really loving spring. He points out the new buds on every plant, and has learned to excitedly identify crocuses and daffodils. He only pulls on dead plants. On the way home, Brock stopped to hug every tree. EVERY tree. 

We also started a new Easter tradition (at Holly's suggestion): BBQ ribs for dinner. We learned that Brock much prefers to eats ribs off the bone then to have them cut into bites for him. He's a predator. We also learned we should take more pictures of the smiling family before we get rib fingers. So you just get to look at food. Brock asked to do another Easter egg hunt the next two mornings, so we know he'll be looking forward to next year. He's a big fan of eggs and bunnies and spring, and seeing Easter through his eyes makes it all magical again. 

Here's a picture from today (4/2). Today it snowed enough to have a snow ball fight. Then it got sunny and nice and all the snow melted. Then those conditions repeated three times. Chicago! Brock made the best of it, but I think we're all ready for spring to be real.   

Egg time! twas a hit.

Carrot cake to appease the Easter Bunny.

Sorry we are jumping around a bit here. That is the danger of two parents taking pictures and coming together later on a blog. But prior to Easter... was of course the Easter Train!

Note the conductor... WOW!! Perfect casting.

We suffered new-to-the-2-year-old-activities parenting kerfluffell, we got there 15 minutes before 11 when the train was to start running, there was no one there. Thinking we has plenty of time, we went into the festive French Market for coffee and beer. Upon return, the line was an estimated 45 minutes. We decided to see how long Brock would last and feel it out, we had come all the way after all and were already going to miss the egg hunt. 

Between all the excitement, other people in line, and a 20 minute potty break, the wait was up!

Woo woo! Easter Train away!

Toot-les!