The night before Easter was a long night, only mildly due to Malcolm, mostly due to a false fire alarm in our building at 4 am that we didn’t know was false.  Thankfully we were able to call down before we grabbed both boys and ran down 27 flights of stairs.  So when Adam woke at 5:45 we snuggled in our bed for an hour of Toy Story watching before starting the festivities.

After some snuggling we reminded Adam that the Easter Bunny had come.  This was Adam’s third Easter egg hunt but his favorite.  He was ready to start hunting those eggs.

Next up was our Easter Baskets! Halfway through the Easter Egg hunt Adam noticed the baskets on the table and was so excited.  Roman and Isla sent Adam and Malcolm some fun treats and the Easter Bunny brought one too.  There were cars, a Rabbit ball popper and of course Adam’s favourite ‘cindies’.  Added bonus bought from Adam’s favourite book, the Oriental Trading Magazine candy bracelets. These were a fan favourite.  I wasn’t sure Adam would know how to eat it, he sure showed me.  He gobbled that thing down in record time!

Malcolm got some fun treats too.  Two bunnies, two fun shirts and a hat.  And Adam got to eat all of his candy. Win, win for everyone.

A nap helped rejuvenate Adam. For the rest of us it was time to get ready for our Easter party.  We made a yummy marinated leg of lamb (by we, I mean Randy), a delicious quinoa salad (recipe to come) and lots more food.

We took a long walk the night before and picked up some pretty flowers for Easter and took Adam to a little amusement park by the flower and fruit market.  They were such a pretty addition to our tables.

Everyone arrived and we had one last Easter egg hunt with our guests.  Then a delicious meal, some Nemo watching and a whole lot of candy and cupcakes for the young ones.  A perfect day.

 

We had a four day weekend for Easter and in very unlike us fashion, we stayed home.  Malcolm is still waiting for his diplomatic passport so we decided (aka-had no choice) to stay home for Easter and enjoy each other, the beautiful sunny weather and an empty city (no traffic!!).

We went swimming a lot.  We spent a lot of time kissing Malcolm.

We made Greek Easter cookies, koulourakia.  Adam loved this.  He helped decorate the bunnys and ate his body weight in sprinkles.

We dyed Easter Eggs! Adam loved this too.  He plopped all the eggs in and loved taking them out and seeing what color they had turned We of course made lots of purple eggs.  Is it a royal insult that we used the Dutchess to dry our eggs? I guess we can call it even since most of our eggs are purple, the color of royalty.

I love holidays with Adam at this age.  It’s exciting to see how much he enjoys it.  It’s also so special to celebrate Malcolm’s first Easter and our first holiday as a family of four.  Before we know it Malcolm will be fighting Adam for those purple Easter eggs!

 

You know you have kids when this makes you cry and worry about your two year old and four month old going off to college.

Dear Adam,

You are changing so much every day that I want to remember the little things about you right now at two years and five months that make you so unique and special.

1)  How utterly obsessed you are with the color purple.  When we’re reading a book with something purple in it you say ”this my purple’ (a bit reminiscent of Gollum in Lord of the Rings with his precious).  You’ll give mommy and daddy the blue, pink, green, blue but only a little bit of the purple. Anything purple in the house gets carried around, the purple car, the purple lego guy, the purple flashcard, the purple book.  Any purple fruit you insist on gobbling up, here that means star apple. 

2)  You insist on dragging out bedtime for as looooong as possible.  Your favorite move is insisting on saying good night to Malcolm and giving him a kiss. You know your parents are suckers for this that we’ll let you always go and say goodnight.  You also insist on kissing both our cheeks goodnight, European style.  You also always want to read one more book, just like Olivia.  We then have to sing Happy Birthday to the item of the day. Just this week we’ve sung Happy Birthday to the purple and black car, Malcolms toy, your friend Bronson, your tent, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.  But after all that you go to bed and you sleep all night. 

3)  You have a surprisingly strong and accurate throwing arm for a two year old when throwing balls.  Daddy is hoping you’ll be the next Dwight Gooden.  But your new move includes a throw followed by a turn.  You love it and always precedes with a ‘mommy look’ and follows with a ‘mommy, see that?’ It’s pretty cute, but you’ll have to refine this a bit before your Mets days.

4)  You love going for walks with me.  You’ll hop in your stroller and not make a peep the whole time we’re out except to ask for water or a snack.  Tuesday, you and I went for a two hour walk and you loved every minute of it.  You take in everything and love watching the jeepneys, the construction cranes and the people.
     
       This is a 4(a) whenever you’re done with your water, snacks or anything you say ‘ti ti’ for thank 
       you.

5) You are obsessed with Nemo, which extends to loving all fish, octopuses and sharks.  This luckily means you even love to eat fish!  You are obsessed with your shark pajamas.  You have a goldfish who is named Otis. 

      This is 5(a) whenever I ask you what someone’s name is- your fish, your car, your stuffed         
      animals- you reply Otis.  This is a throwback to when we were in Hong Kong and you were
      obsessed with Kate and Gavin’s dog Otis.  I’m surprised you didn’t insist we name Malcolm Otis!

I love a million things about you so more to come.

Love,
Mommy

Here is the potty humor that gets a rise in our house and an example of the humor that Adam at just two and a couple of months already has.  We always say to him, no poo only pee.  Well, one day he looked at us and said no poo, only cake.  This of course elicited laughs from his parents and has turned into a hundred more variations including, no poo only nothing, mommy, my house, cars and countless others.  Here we are celebrating Easter with no poo, only Easter cookies.

 

Our building had an Easter Party the week before Easter that the Alis attended.  We dressed up in our Easter best and headed down.

Number two was the entertainment.  While we were expecting a more traditional Easter Bunny,  Bingo greeted us at the door.  While some of his magic tricks were decent, this one stopped me in my tracks.  He pulled out his ‘gun’ aka his finger and shot his pigeon who then pretended to be dead.  Not really what I would consider appropriate for a room full of toddlers.

 

We are pretty lucky to live in a building that has this beautiful pool and lots of sun during the summer!

Malcolm came down to cheer on Adam.