The Hempler Family: Easter Celebrations!

Happy Easter Everyone!

This past weekend was filled with family, friends, and fun. We left Friday morning to go to Red Wing only to be greeted by a small chore my mom wanted help with. The small chore ended up taking a good portion of the afternoon as we put up a fence around a flower garden for her, surrounded the area with concrete edging and then filled in the garden with mulch...oh and did I forget the Menards run in there? I don't think she intended it to be so much work but we were glad to help her out even if our day of relaxing wasn't so much!

That night our good friends Abby and Mike came over with their daughter Lucy for burgers on the grill. Lucy is becoming Robert's holiday buddy as so far they've spent time together at Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Easter. It was fun to see the two interact and it is always nice to hang out with them to share in the joys of parenting!!!

On Saturday my brother Nick and sister-in-law Mandie came down and we had a delicious Easter dinner. Mandie and I love the cheesy potatoes that has become a family tradition when we eat ham and thought we were very generous to share with everyone else. Of course we both took some leftovers home and are keeping our husbands out of it! After we were all pleasantly stuffed we headed down to one of the local parks to walk, exercise our dogs, and check out their new state of the art playground. The weather was so beautiful this weekend and it was great to get outside after a LONG winter.

Walking the path by the river at the park.

Swinging at the new playground...the ground is all soft and squishy!

Sunday morning we went to the early service at church and Robert did really well. Only one poopy diaper and a couple of dinosaur shrieks during the service...not too bad! We think all the music helped keep him calm and he loved listening to his Grandma sing in the choir! After church we went back and started to pack up while Robert napped. After a quick lunch of leftovers we headed up to Farmington for our last celebration.

Eric's dad has been on a kick to try out new cooking ideas and this weekend he wanted to relive the 70s and so we fondued for Easter! It was a lot of fun and I'm still wanting more of the yummy cheese fondue he made...luckily he sent home some of the cheese with us so there is some in my near future. The Troesters (Eric's Uncle Tom, Cousin Kelly and her husband Shane, and son Tobias) were also able to join in the day and we had a great time watching the kids run around and play. Lyric did a great job and entertaining Robert and Tobias, whose 1 1/2 years old, but she sure was tired by the end of the day.

Lyric giving Robert his toy blocks

Tobias finding another Easter egg and eating more Jelly Beans!

This week should be a pretty quiet one for us. We have swimming lessons tomorrow night and I have to teach on Friday night but other than that we are looking forward to a restful week...now if we could only get Robert to sleep through the night we'd really get some rest!