Can you believe it?  I told you yesterday that I’d get the first half of the Easter post up today, and it actually happened.  Tell me honestly, did anyone believe it would happen?  Well, it did.  So stop being so pessimistic.  It’s not that I don’t follow through, or aren’t dilligent.  It’s that my follow through is entirely random.  I *might* make the deadline.  I *might* not.  No one ever knows before hand, least of all me.  Oh, right, Easter.

So as everyone’s well aware, Malin’s mother Helen and sister Petra visited us last week.  Petra fell in love with the boys, but especially Dexter I think.  And as for Helen, well, first, she’s obviously eager for grandchildren (no pressure though, Malin or Petra…)  Second, we had to inspect her bags before she left just to be sure she hadn’t tried to smuggle a boy home.  It would’ve been difficult with all the stuff she bought, but we wouldn’t put it past her to ship her stuff by FedEx and fit a kiddo in there on the sly.  And third, she spoiled the boys rotten.  They got sunglasses, easter eggs, a ball pit / kiddy pool, a hundred brightly colored balls, huge easter balloons,  stuffed animals (Buzz Lightyear and Lightning McQueen), Swedish outfits, and two bath toys.  Seriously spoiled.  They’ll probably turn out to be unappreciative teenagers with a chip on their shoulder and a lifetime of angst, but that’s a problem for another decade.

The girls watched the boys for us on Monday night, so Katie and I could have a date night, of all things.  They also fixed us Swedish Lasagna, far too much garlic, and generally a great time with them, and it was very hard to say good bye Easter morning.  But I’m just a little bit ahead of myself.

Easter started a couple of weeks ago, when we took the boys to the SNOMOM’s easter egg hunt.  Nicholas was a true hunter, but Dexter just wanted to make friends.  I’d practiced with them before hand, but you can only do so much…  On Saturday, the day before easter, we stopped by Fred Meyer and bought some Easter decorations, along with some much needed grocery shopping.  Nothing too much, but I figure some decorations will make it feel slightly more festive, and changing everything up keeps the boys on their toes.  The boys are really getting the hang of “steering” the cart with the driving wheels, and had me ram a number of cute shoppers, for which I am eternally grateful.  Helen, Petra, and Malin had been planning on spending the weekend in Seattle, but Petra was too smitten with the boys and insisted they come back to see us Saturday night.  We figured it was a good opportunity to introduce them to Carter and Marilyn, so we planned a nice dinner.

In order to have more than 5 people eat at our house, however, we need to rearrange the furniture.  So, the hope chest moves by the door, the chair by the door moves to the dining room, as does the chair in the living room.  The changing table moves to the Living room, and the bench moves to the front hallway.  The Table moves to the center of the room, and grows with the addition of one of the leaves.  Katie accomplished all of this while I ran to Lowe’s for urgent man-business.  The boys were extra helpful, of course, and you can see some pictures of the boys helping Katie inspect the table.    We also decorated some eggs, but as I was the decorator, no photos were taken.  The boys ably supervised and provided instruction.

The girls were home by then, after one last run to the mall, and helped feed the boys.  Then Carter and Marilyn arrived, and we had a great dinner.  It just so happened that Helen had her birthday just the day before (her 29th, or so I’m told), so we bought a lemon meringue tart from the French bakery to commemorate the occasion.  Nicholas was a very, very big fan.  Of the meringue, anyway.  Afterward the boys ran and played, and eventually went to bed.  Carter and Marilyn headed home, and the girls went upstairs.  Katie and I cleaned everything up, collapsed the table and re-arranged the furniture, put out their easter baskets, and hid eggs throughout the house.  And then I think we slept.  My god, I was exhausted.

Here’s an album of some photos. I didn’t make this one autoplay, because the autoplay is too fast when there are captions. If you move your mouse over the album, you’ll see three blue buttons at the bottom. Hit the Right Arrow to scroll through the photos. Alternately, if you click on the big green arrow, it will take you to PicasaWeb to view the album.