Easter pictures with the kids

I have many Easter posts in queue (along with a few term papers and that blasted thesis) and I figure these stories will remain relevant because, in the words of Alexander, "Did you know that we have two Easters? Regliar and Oxagon."

"Orthodox," Andrew told him.

"Regliar and Orthodox," Alexander repeated, not bothering to correct regular. "And that will be awesome because two Easters!"

He was pretty disappointed when I told him we, unfortunately, only celebrated Easter one time.

But Orthodox Easter is coming up (and we even have our primary Easter party that day) so I figure I can keep posting about Easter for a while.

Tonight it's late and Phoebe is rejecting the idea of slumber, so I'll just do a brief post about trying to get a cute picture of my kids on Easter morning.

Phoebe wore a darling dress that I picked out from the sales rack at Target while I was wandering around—pregnant—after getting one of my COVID vaccines. It's been hanging in our closet for a while. She even (kind of) let me do her hair. That is, I put a headband on her and distracted her until she forgot about it for all of five minutes before yanking it off her head again.

Here she is looking longingly outside, wishing she could join her siblings on the other side of the glass...but ignoring Mom's pleas to come put her shoes on.

Turns out, watching your siblings do silly dances through the window is pretty funny.

Did I acquire beautiful Easter clothes for the rest of the children? No. They just picked what they wanted from what they had. Because some years you have these things together and some years you don't (and I lean very heavily to the "don't" side of things).

(I will, however, note that Miriam is wearing a lovely yellow-cream dress that she sewed herself!)

Taking a group picture was tricky. Phoebe was feeling squirrelly and Benjamin decided that sitting for a picture would require every ounce of stoicism he could muster.

Here's one with everyone except Phoebe smiling:

And here's about where we called it quits:

On the way inside (to hold our annual Easter Egg Smackdown), Phoebe stopped for a quick turn or two on her slide.

Like family pictures, slides can be a little bit tricky, especially in a cute (obnoxious) dress.

But she managed.

Even Benjamin finds slides a little bit tricky. He might have come out on top at the Easter Egg Smackdown, but...he did not come out on top in the smackdown this little slide gave him!