Easter Week - Long Post!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!  Due to a second trip to the hospital for contractions coming 2-3 minutes apart, being placed on medication for contractions, failing my glucose screening, and simply being completely stressed out and worn out, our plans to go to North Alabama changed and us three Lassiters stayed put for the weekend.  I was sad to miss out on seeing my family but it really was the best decision as I am feeling much better!  And on the upside, we got to spend some time with Ben's family which was a lot of fun and you will see pictures of that towards the end of the post.  Also, before I go any further, Baby Jack (yes we have a name now!) is fine and I am not considered to be in preterm labor, thank the Lord. 

We decided to name the baby Jackson Ellis Lassiter and call him Jack.  As I mentioned before, we have had a hard time deciding on a name and I had been praying about what to call #2.  The name "Jack," a family name on both sides, had popped into my head but I hadn't mentioned it to Ben.  So one day  I asked Ben if there were any baby names sticking out in his mind and he said, "Well, I have kind of been thinking about Jack."  I told him that I had been thinking the same thing and so we decided that Jack it must be!  We got Ellis from my dad's middle name which had been in the running for the middle name pretty strong all along.  My only hesitation was that I might want to use it for a girl down the road, but we thought it sounded good with Jackson.  All of the family approves and that is the icing on the cake.  I am really really excited to finally have a name for this baby!  ALSO, this baby now has a birthday all picked out... June 10th! We scheduled the C-section at my last appointment and that means that Jack will be here exactly 10 weeks from today (if he stays put like he is supposed to)!

Now, let's get back to Easter...  When I realized that Mason is now old enough to enjoy egg hunting and dying I got a little carried away.  I bought 2 dozen eggs and boiled them last Sunday in anticipation for the dying and hunting to begin.  I realized that he would not be very entertained by waiting on eggs in cups to change colors and I was trying to figure out what to do when I came across a post on watercolor eggs from this website.  Perfect!

So, we added a few drops of food coloring to a few tablespoons of water and then a splash of vinegar and we painted away!  Actually, Mason did the painting almost all by himself!  He really seemed to enjoy it and also enjoyed moving the eggs around in the carton.

I was a bit nervous about there being a huge mess but Mason barely got any of the dye on his hands and the newspaper soaked up anything that dripped.  Clean up was no problem.  In fact, we only painted one dozen so we will probably paint the second dozen soon just for kicks.

My parents decided to head up to Nashville to spend Easter with Cara and Matt, but not before bringing Mason his Easter gift.  They gave him a new pop up book, which is awesome and has a whale in it (Mason's favorite lately), and some Thomas the Tank Engine pajamas.  I will have to get a photo of him in his new PJ's.  He loves them and cried when I took them off of him the first morning.  He points to Thomas and says "Thomas... blue!"  Blue is the only color he knows so it is good that Thomas is actually blue.  

On Friday, when Mason was finally all well, we got to take a trip to the zoo with several of our friends.  Mason had talked about going to see the animals with Caden allllll week and literally cried when we didn't go immediately at 3:00 one morning when he woke up sick.  I was only able to get all the little kids in the picture above because of the lens I had with me, but Hadley and Alex are there too!  I kept trying to get them all on one level but as soon as the big kids would get down, the little ones climbed up.  Mason had a great time with all of his friends and I loved getting to spend time with their mommies too!  All the kids are so much fun to watch and it has been a joy getting to see them all grow up together.

In all the craziness with the pregnancy, I completely forgot about getting Mason something to wear for Easter and getting stuff for his Easter basket like I had planned to do the weekend before.  On Saturday I went through his closet to see if he had anything "Eastery" for church the next day.  Thankfully I had bought some outfits for him last year when they were on sale in anticipation for this year.  I also pulled out some of his 18 month outfits from last summer to see if they still fit.  Mason ooh'd and ahhh'd over all the outfits I showed him.  Seriously.  He really likes all of his clothes, even the dressy ones.  All I have to do is say, "Oh Mason! Look at your outfit with monkeys on it!!"  And he goes, "oooh!"  So, he picked up the one pictured above with machines on it and I tried it on him only to realize it is way to small.  However, he refused to take it off and insisted on putting his boots on with it.  So that is how he spent much of his morning....  wearing an unbuttoned too small smocked outfit with cowboy boots.  He even wore it to eat breakfast.  Notice he is also holding his friend "Baby Duck" who he named himself and sleeps with, along with the bunnies.

We convinced Mason out of his smocked outfit and into "work clothes" so he could go out and play and hunt eggs while Ben and I did stuff around the yard.  He loved hunting his painted eggs as much as the plastic ones but he kept trying to put the painted eggs inside the plastic eggs and they kept falling out.  He would put the painted eggs in the plastic ones and then put them into his basket just like that.  The only draw back to the real eggs is that the dogs kept trying to eat them.  I would go to a spot where I knew I had hidden an egg and find that it had disappeared.  Then I'd see it later covered in dirt somewhere else in the yard where one of the dogs had dropped it.

Working in the garden

Digging in the dirt pile where Daddy has been fixing the fence

Bringing out the heavy equipment

Filling up the dump truck

He was helping me pot the plants, or really just taking out all of the potting soil that I was putting in.

After all, what else would you do with potting soil?

Goodies from the Easter Bunny... clothes, bubbles, golf bag

Mason and Daddy after church on Sunday

The "test picture" I was taking from the tripod while trying to set up for the family photo.  I love something about it....

Little man and Me, 29 weeks pregnant...  Mason was done with pictures and wanted to play with his golf clubs. He was literally putting up a fight for me to hold on to him so I said "Ben, say something to make him laugh."  Ben's response, "Mason, say boogers!" Really?? Haha!!

Getting a golf lesson from Daddy

This is a "before" shot of our yard and garden.  We are getting new grass today, but more on that later!

That evening we headed out to Mimi and Pop's house for dinner and some egg hunting with Neal and Tori and their kids.  (Neal is Ben's younger brother.)  We had such a good time hanging out and watching the kids play.  Even though rain was predicted, it cleared up just in time and left that beautiful rainbow for us to enjoy!

We were greeted  by Neal and Tori's new puppy, a Bull Mastiff.  So cute!

Neely made sure that Mason knew where Bunny was at all times.  They were so cute playing together.

Running through the clover to get to Pop and Cole

He loves a tractor ride with Pop!

Weslianne and Neal taking a spin on the 4 wheeler

Neely loved hunting the eggs and was so excited to find them.

Such cute cousins!  

Pop helping Mason get to the good stuff... he knows if you shake it and it makes noise then there is a prize inside

Mason loves his Mimi

Mason wanted to go the pasture to look for the "neigh" but there were no horses out this day.

I said a lot of stuff about Easter but somehow failed to leave out the most important part... Jesus!

Because He lives I can face tomorrow
Because He lives all fear is gone
And I know who holds the future
And life is worth the living just because He lives!!


 Until next time...