Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone!  Jack is happy to report that the Easter Bunny made a stop by our house early this morning!

"Look, an egg!"

"Check out all my loot, Mom!"

"I'm not sure any more eggs are gonna fit!!!"

"Ha! He hid one in my sandbox."

"This is awesome!"

"Check it out"

Once the egg hunting was over we moved to the front yard to look for the rumored Easter Basket that might contain special gifts. The following pictures and video document the actual reaction Jack had to the basket. It took us 15 minutes for him to even go near it. Not because he was scared or didn't like it. You see, Jack is in love with Jessie from Toy Story. When I say he is in love, I mean he is IN LOVE!!!!! Anytime he sees Jessie on the movie he throws himself around the room and holds his tummy. He smiles the smile of a man in love when you talk about her. The Easter Basket contained Jack's very own Jessie doll (OK, Ryan, "action figure") in it!!!

First realizing Jessie was in the basket.

"My tummy, my tummy!"

A boy in love.

Now let's open some eggs.  He loved the big eggs with matchbox cars in them.

...but nothing compared to the eggs with CANDY!!!

Nothing like chocolate in the morning- breakfast of champions!

"Mini Bulldozer!"

I bet the Easter Bunny is rethinking putting a sword in his basket now!

Jack and all his pals.

This is what happens when the sugar wears off.  Even Jessie couldn't make it out before the callapse.

Jack and his gal.

For all those Carlson's out there... Ryan has perfected the art of the Swedish Pancake so that we can have a proper Easter down here in CA.

Iron Chef Ryan.

Getting ready for the all important flip.

Perfection!

Thanks, Dad, for an awesome breakfast!

The Hunt (or lack there of)

We took Jack to his first official Easter Egg Hunt today.  Our neighbor is very involved in her Church and they do a GIANT hunt / party for the kids each year.  There were hundreds of kids there to hunt eggs, play games, get their faces painted and ride on the train!

The hunt itself wasn't very successful.  In a field full of hundreds of eggs (all for the 0-2 year olds only) Jack wasn't able to pick up a single egg.  The amount of greed displayed at an event meant to celebrate Jesus was disgusting.  We saw parents pushing other parents (and kids) and many of the adults were grabbing every single egg they could and didn't even have their children with them.  One very generous parent who saw that Jack was searching for even one egg, donated one of her child's eggs (that poor kid only had 3).  We put it in the grass so he could find it and put it in his basket himself.  So I guess there was a representation of Jesus at the event after all, but it doesn't leave much hope for most of humanity.  I'll get off my soap box now because the real fun of the event for Jack was getting to see a real fire truck and ride on a train!

Can't you see him as a future fireman?

Riding on the train was the best part of the day!

Boingo!

Jack and I went to Boingo's today to do some bounce house jumpin'. 

He couldn't believe how many bouncers there were!

Getting warmed up in the tunnels.

"Hey Mom, a little help here?!"

The toddler slide went pretty fast!

I'm not sure he was expecting that kind of speed!!

Getting a little braver on the bigger bouncer.

"Hey, where's this girl going?"

Amazing how some peer pressure can make you a very brave little boy.

"Ahhhhhh"

"Yee-haw!!!"

 We only had to repeat the BIG SLIDE like 50 times!

Getting Ready For The Bunny!

We made our first attempt at dying Easter eggs this year.  Not sure we were quite ready yet!  Jack ended up with "Incredible Hulk" green hands and the eggs ended up broken on the floor.  I was only able to salvage a couple of pictures (we were not feeling photogenic that night, either). So here's to hoping the bunny can deliver us some better eggs!

"How does this work exactly?"

"What kind of a chicken lays a blue egg?"

He did enjoy coloring on the eggs.

"Wait a minute - something doesn't taste right!!!"

"Oh yeah, much better!"

A little "watching Woody" (Toy Story) and riding on Horton the Horse (named entirely by Jack himself) made everything better.

Nathan at 18 weeks

We had our second major ultrasound checking for Spina Bifida this week.  The fantastic news is that in combination with both screenings and the blood work they have completely ruled out all chance of Spina Bifida.  The doctor said Nathan looks great!  Here are the amazing shots we got of him.  We even got to watch him in 4-D move around - totally amazing!

Already a shy boy hiding from the camera.

Confirming that he is indeed still a boy:)

This is his foot.

These are the 4 chambers of his heart and you can see the heart beat along the bottom.  Very strong!

Great shot of his arm and fingers.