Egg hunt

This really is the last Easter post!

Sunday afternoon we went to our friend's home for a cook-out and egg hunt. Sometimes in the middle of a moment it will occur to me that I am the Mom now....it's almost hard to believe. When the Dad's went out in the yard to hide the eggs and the Moms closed the blinds and kept the kids inside it hit me...I am a Mom. I won't be finding the eggs....we were responsible for those. I'm a real live grown up Mom who hides eggs for some kids...and some of those kids are mine. Whoa.

Anyway...as much as I miss the hunt and the thrill of each trinket in the found eggs. It's even more thrilling to see my little running around with joy to find her own eggs. Cupcake is not highly competitive. I'm not sure where that comes from because her father and I are...ummm....a tad competitive. She however is just happy to be doing something fun and has no need to win. We got a sense of that last year when she retrieved only 1 egg. This year she found more than 1 but not with a spirit of competition and rather a spirit of adventure. She didn't care how many she got but wanted to make getting each one an adventure. While other kids ran to grab the easiest ones first she wanted to jump off the porch, climb the rock wall, look under water tables......all in her dress. I seriously love this about her! It was adorable to watch and today her little legs are bruised from ankle to thigh but she could careless....they are not war wounds...they are fun marks :)

Here's the picture recap:

On the porch waiting for "go"


Ready, set, JUMP!


Climbing high!

And later...she would bring me an egg now and then to add to the basket. Long after the hunt she was still giving the yard a once, twice, and thrice over and finding more eggs. You can get much past our Cupcake!

Cadbury Cream Egg

I have a confession.

It's so gross the mere idea of typing it makes me embarrassed. But...this is the Crack Team Chronicles. We keep it real and debunk the 2.5 kids, white picket fence, perfection mentality. So here it is....

Several years ago, before I was Mrs. Crack, I lived in an apartment complex in a fun part of NW Austin. The complex was set up that 4 apartments opened up toward each other. Since I can talk to a tree, I knew all 3 of the other residents. One Easter I decided I would give each of them a Cadbury Cream Egg with a postcard flyer inviting them to our Church's Easter service. This was perfect because they sell the Cream Eggs in a 4 pack. Do the math people....that means one extra for me.

YES! SCORE! I LOVE LOVE LOVE the delicious treat that comes out only one time per year. They don't cave to greed like every other candy. Have you noticed that when we (if you are my age) were kids there were only a few kinds of Easter candy: Jelly Beans, Speckled Malted Eggs, foil covered Chocolate eggs, Chocolate bunny's....and CADBURY CREAM EGGS. Now...Easter is like Halloween but in pastel colors. You can even buy Junior Mints in Easter colors. I'm sure my Mother is thrilled. However, in a country struggling with obesity it's a bit much. The Cadbury Cream Eggs have not sold out...they do not try to be Cadbury pumpkins....Cadbury Valentines...or any other holiday that now seems to warrant a ridiculous amount of candy. I digress.

Back to the eggs. I bought the four pack. I got my postcards. I was ready to evangelize with the people I had borrowed salt from, complained about the bad maintenance men, or chatted with after work or while walking to the mail box. Then I got nervous. Sometimes when you invite people to church it changes things. Suddenly they feel like you are pushing religion on them...or you will judge them if they don't come. Then they avoid you...scared you will invite them again. Even though I wanted them to explore faith...I also had to open my door 5 feet from theirs and I didn't want things to get weird. I decided I would eat my egg for energy and then head out. What ridiculous thinking....

Then it happened. I unwrapped the foil. Why is it primary colors instead of pastels? Who cares? I smell the chocolate...I take a bite. OOoozzing cream drips down. Do I need to say more? Well...about 30 minutes later I had three postcards in the recycle pile and 100g of carbs and 88g of sugar in my belly. All 4. I ate all 4. In one sitting. Instead of evangelizing. Things got weird with the neighbors. Every time I saw them I thought about how I ate their egg and didn't invite them to church.

I have NEVER eaten a Cream Egg since. It's not because I got sick from them. Sadly. That would have been easy. Instead those eggs represent complete lack of self control for me. I feel like if I eat one I might just eat 4 or 6 or 10. Perhaps I'm like a recovering addict and I know it's better to not go there. But perhaps I'm just a little mad that my good intentions with my neighbors went down the drain with the chocolate yummy-ness. So each Easter I convince myself I don't need them, don't like them, don't want them. In recent years I've had to convince myself of that while buying a few for the Hubs who also LOVES the creamy eggs.

Then came this year. I thought about how we RARELY give Cupcake sugar, desserts, candy, etc. When a holiday comes around though, I do like to let her indulge and by indulge I mean a few pieces. So...when thinking about the 3 pieces (really that's all she got!) of candy that should be in her basket of course I couldn't imagine it without a Cadbury Cream Egg. So, here she is with her first and only Cadbury Cream Egg. She loved it. She downed it. She might be like her mama.....who,for the record...still hasn't eaten one since the fateful day when gluttony got the best of her.

Best friends

From birth Cupcake had friends that were close in age that we were seeing regularly. When you are a new parent it's natural to find other new parents and get together well before your kids need "friends." Luckily Cupcake likes the "friends" we choose for her and many of those friendships are dear to us even today.

With Cutie Pie however, we haven't had as many "friends" for her. Really we've been lucky that a few of our friends with older kids have 2nd children that will be a great fit when Cutie Pie is a bit older. The closest "friend" she has now is 6 weeks younger than she is and lives about 4 minutes from our house. Dream! Right? We LOVE that even though we don't have as many play dates for her, she will have one friend who is close in age and proximity. They are sweet together and spent much of our Easter celebration sitting side by side, trying to hold hands.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter From The Crack Team!


It's too sunny. My kids refused to look at the camera. You see more of the neighbors house in this picture than ours. But...it's the reality of our picture taking these days. How about those roses? They are mine...and they cooperated nicely. :)

We hope you had a fabulous day celebrating the Risen King! We went to church first thing in the morning and so Easter baskets were not had until after church. Here's the action run down of our older bunny:

A look at the baskets:
Cupcake came running in as fast as she could. Any hope of a little sugar around here is sure worth running for!Then she was so surprised to see the set up...pink, princess, and candy are all favorites.

She had to open each part...in this egg is a bottle of pink glitter nail polish:


Our littlest bunny spent most of the day watching though I'm guessing by next year we'll have two running in for their baskets.


I have carrot cake hang over and if I don't walk away from the Easter egg hunt basket I might gain two pounds during nap this afternoon. However, as a first Easter for Cutie Pie...and another one for the rest of us....it was a really special day.

How she sleeps

Cutie Pie is a wiggle worm! While she sleeps best swaddled it's becoming the time to break that habit. She wiggles all around and sometimes ends up with her head where her feet were. I keep thinking if she rolls onto her stomach...even by accident she'll be stuck. So...we've started to swaddle with her arms out. Sadly she doesn't sleep as well. She does however still try to get her hands in her mouth like she has since we were taking her pictures in the womb!

Last night she fussed for a bit and realized we weren't coming in. So she kicked her feet up, stuck her hands in her mouth and hung out...for a couple of hours. Seriously? How did she not get sleepy? Today she's sleepy but in the meantime I clicked a picture with our video monitor.

Cutie Pie chillin' when she should be sleepin':

Cupcake's birthday questions

We did a little birthday interview so we could remember Cupcake's preferences at age three. Here are the questions, mama's predictions, and the real answers:

1. What is your favorite color?
Mama's guess - pink
Cupcake's answer - pink

2. What is your favorite toy?
M - view finder (we play with that EVERY day)
C - Cat and the Hat

3. What is your favorite fruit?
M - strawberries
C - strawberries

4. What is your favorite TV show?
M - Sid the Science Kid
C - Cat and the Hat

5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?
M - peanut butter and jelly time
C- peanut butter and jelly (is she finally not calling it peanut butter jelly time?)

6. What is your favorite outfit?
M - Hello Kitty shirt
C - Princess shirt

7. What is your favorite game?
M - Not sure
C - popsicle memory game (thanks again, Kelli!)

8. What is your favorite snack?
M - raisins
C - cereal bars (Aunt Sheri found these yummy cereal bars and Cupcake loves them...how did I not think of that?)

9. What is your favorite animal?
M - Callie
C - Lion

10. What is your favorite song?
M - "I know you" (Sleeping Beauty)
C - "I know you"

11. What is your favorite book?
M - Pocahontas
C - Tiana (The Princess and the Frog)

12. Who is your best friend?
M - Lily and Eva
C - Lily and Dawson

13. What is your favorite cereal?
M - O's (organic Cherrios)
C - O's and Daddy's (Daddy's is shredded wheat)

14. What is your favorite thing to do outside?
M - Run
C - Bubbles

15. What is your favorite drink?
M - Smoothies
C - water

16. What is your favorite holiday?
M - Halloween
C - I don't know

17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night?
M - Kiki (blanket) and Emy ( pacifier)
C - Hello Kitty

18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?
M - O's and Daddy's
C - O's and Daddy's

19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday?
M- Mac and Cheese-a-roni
C - broccoli

20. What do you want to be when you grow up?
M- princess
C- a parent
(melt...total melt)

Here's the video play...in her birthday outfit. 3 is going to be fun!

Holy paint fight!

A friend recently asked me at what age should they start scripture memory with their children. I'm not sure if there is a "right" age. But since my opinion was asked, here is my answer: if your child can memorize anything : twinkle, twinkle, the abc's, or several princess songs (ahem. we know about this), than your child can start to memorize scripture. For us we could have even started earlier...but we're still learning the ropes on the timing of things. We're in month 3 of our scripture memory and part of the success of the memory has been the activities that go with each month's theme. Cupcake loves the activities! Since we're moving towards Easter this month is all about how our Holy Father has offers purity and a cleansing of our sin. How better to see that in a 3 year old way than a paint fight? Right? We got some washable paint and let loose during Cutie Pie's morning nape last weekend. Since it was messy affair, I only have a before and after picture.

Have you ever seen a sweeter Daddy's girl?


And after...
Before we washed clean again we talked about how we all have some mess in us. Then we talked about how the mess gets clean when God is in the picture. In case this is news to you...if you are reading this blog, you've got some mess in you. Don't worry, I'm not judging you. We all do. You also have the right to make that mess right in the eyes of God. I hope you have/will.

After giving Cupcake the hose and letting her clean the mess outside we jumped in the shower to get the rest of the paint off. Cutie Pie woke up shortly after....with absolutely no idea of all that had transpired during her nap.

I wonder what the neighbors think of two highly competitive folks slinging paint on their 3 year old. It was a sweet, messy, memorable,epic, Crack Team Saturday morning.