Lizards, Birthdays, and Easter, Oh My!

Our Easter began with The Great Lizard Hunt. Snickers, our chubby, lazy cat, decided Easter morning would be a good time to carry a lizard into our house and set it loose in the family room. Matt, Chris (my brother who is in town visiting from Chicago), and I spent about a half hour turning over furniture and removing couch cushions, searching frantically for our Reptilian friend. No luck. We called off our search and my brother tried to reassure me with statements like these:

"Lizards aren't dangerous, Kerri. It's not like it's going to hurt you."

Well, right. I wasn't exactly terrified of being brutally attacked by a lizard. But I did feel extremely nervous about the possibility of a tiny reptile scurrying across my legs as I slept at night.

Anyway. Back to Easter. I was really looking forward to giving Camden his Easter basket this year, since he's so much older and more aware of what's going on than he was last year at this time. We kicked off the morning with some bunny shaped pancakes. I don't claim to be a culinary artist, and I'll even admit that this bunny's ears fell off shortly after this picture was taken. But Camden loved it, and that's what counts:

When it came to his Easter basket, Camden didn't disappoint. He searched his basket enthusiastically, removing one item at a time to exam it, and then taking time to play with each gift.

Here's the basket (filled with bubbles, crayons, a sketch pad for coloring, some candy, a miniature car, two small trains, and some plastic eggs):

What's this? A Chuggington train?!

Vrooooom! Train vs. Car race!

Hmm. What could this be? A piece of chocolate?

Here you go, Mommy. I've seen you eat 8 of these at once before.

And while you're at it, you can take this grass too. I'm not so sure about this texture.

We also got Camden a lawn mower that blows bubbles, which clearly didn't fit into his Easter basket. We brought it out after he was done going through his basket, and let me tell you, he hated it. Did not like his lawn mower one bit!

Can you tell?

This is booooring!

Okay, I'm obviously joking. He loves that lawn mower to pieces. We promptly took it outside, where he pushed it up and down our street for an hour while repeating "Bubbbah!" as the bubbles floated up from the mower.

Later that day, we packed up and headed out to my parents' house for Easter dinner. Well, actually both Easter dinner and Matt's birthday celebration. That's right-- my husband shared his birthday with Easter this year. All of the grandkids had a fantastic time running through the house and dipping toes into the backyard pool. Then, when we all sang "Happy Birthday" to Matt, Camden signed for more singing once we were done. We ended up signing it 3 more times, until we finally called it quits, much to Camden's dismay. (For the record, I sang it again for him on the car ride home. He did not sign for more when I was done. Should I be offended?)

A family shot, courtesy of my sister:

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend. The Easter bunny was generous, we spent time with lots of family, my nephew celebrated his first birthday, and Matt celebrated his 31st birthday (which means we've reached the part of the year when I get to tease him about being 8 whole months older than me!). Oh, and the lizard eventually made it out of our house safely. Who could ask for anything more?!