Easter Sunday

The Easter Bunny came to visit the Hatch home Saturday night. He did a good job hiding the kid's baskets but thankfully not too tricky of a job since we have early morning church which doesn't leave us too much time for finding baskets. Steven's basket was hid "where dad keeps his soda" (on top of the fridge), Benny's basket was hid "where his feet go when he plays Minecraft" (under the desk), Lucy's was hid "where her shoes go" (the shoe closet) and Penny's was hid "where she sleeps when she is being fussy" (in our closet). The boys got Enderman dolls, Star Wars Sticker Books and Veggie Tale Movies. Lucy got a Pinkie Pie in a a swan boat, bubble bath and lift-the-flap book on Easter. Penny got a boat with little people for the bathtub, and a lift-the-flap book about Noah's Ark. E.B. did a good job!

Before we headed off to church I managed to get a cute picture of all 4 kids in their Easter best! The girls got new dresses, I'm sure you're not surprised that Lucy picked out a purple poofy dress. That girl absolutely loves purple!

After church we did an Easter Egg Hunt with the neighbors. The weather cooperated perfectly for us and was a beautiful 62 degrees. And the kids were actually able to find all their eggs this time (well Ben didn't find his last one until later that day but he did end up finding it!). We even hid two special money eggs and the lucky ones that found them: Eva and Steven. It was all super fun, except for Penny getting chocolate drool all over her brand new shirt, agh!

Kalamazoo & South Haven Day 2

Saturday we had a nice slow morning (full of the Disney Jr Channel) and continental breakfast, then we drove down to the Air Zoo! The kids* were immediately drawn to all the carnival like rides they had there: a Ferris Wheel, a spinny ride, a ride where you can move planes up and down and a ride that drops you. They spent a good amount of time on those rides, Steven and Tyler also spent some time riding a flight simulator that was apparently awesome! 

*By kids I mean Lucy, Steven and Benny. I traumatized Penny by taking her on probably the fastest, spinniest ride first and then she refused to ride any after that. I don't blame her, that ride made me sick too!

Although Penny hated the carnival rides they had an awesome toddler room with planes and space shuttles to ride that rocked back and forth or just shook a little. That room was a hit with her!

After getting their fill on the rides we grabbed some lunch and then the boys and Lucy went and watched a 4D movie that showed a plane dropping a bomb. I did not get to watch this because Miss Penny was being Miss Fussy Pants so we spent our time in the toddler room.

When the movie ended we piled into the car and drove over to the other campus of the Air Zoo. This one was mostly just planes but the perk was that the kids could sit in some of the planes. Penny was still being naughty so I didn't get to see much of this campus. I ended up taking her to the van in hopes of getting her to take a nap.

Since I was feeling a bit bummed about missing out on things I decided that when we were done with the planes, we needed to go eat some donuts. We headed to Sweetwater's Donut Mill. This place is open 24/7 and has a crazy selection of doughnut flavors! I got a s'more doughnut, Tyler got Snicker's, Penny got cinnamon sugar and the kids all got sprinkle doughnuts. We also got a half dozen to go which included Oreo, Chocolate Lover's Delight, and Caramel Chocolate. Trust me they are all as delicious as they sound!

After stuffing our faces we decided to make the hour drive to South Haven so we could see Lake Michigan. I don't know why I wanted to do this so bad, maybe because I feel like it's not a vacation unless you see the beach? Anyways, we found this super awesome playground right off Lake Michigan called Kid's Corner. This place looked like a wooden castle, it was so neat! The only off setting thing was this random stranger who pushed rattle socks into my hand. He was really weird about it and I had to nicely give them back since I don't have any babies that would wear them. Besides that it was fun times!

After getting all our wiggles out we took a walk down the beach and then down the pier to the South Haven Lighthouse. Lake Michigan is ridiculously huge and makes you feel like your at the ocean since you can't see the end of it. However, the Lighthouse was disappointingly small, had graffiti on one side of it, and a pool of rusty water next to it that smelled like pee. Oh, well. It was still fun to see the great big lake, chase seagulls, write in the sand, and take silly pictures on the pier!

And that marks the end of our little weekend getaway. This trip was not absolutely perfect, the kids still fought and drove us crazy, Penny was still a fussy monkey and Lucy still threw fits when things didn't go quite her way but that's just something you can't get away from and hopefully all the really good moments we shared together will be the ones that will be remembered.

Kalamazoo Michigan Day 1

After eating lunch Friday we headed to Kalamazoo for a little weekend getaway. When we got to Kalamazoo we were to early to check in to our hotel so we made a stop at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum. This place was amazing for the kids and it was even more awesome because it was FREE. 

When we first got there Benny hit his chin on a lever and bit his lip, making for a bloody mess. They even called a security guard to come check on him, it was a little awkward and weird. But after we got that unpleasantness out of the way we got to work having fun:

They had a room just for little ones and it was Penny's favorite place in the Museum hands down, especially the bus that she got to "drive":

Steven thought the new station weather center was the coolest. He loved reading the news and making up forecasts:

Benny and Lucy loved the pretend restaurant, they served me up hot dogs, hamburgers and ice cream with mustard on top:

After serving up some pretend food we headed to Steak N Shake for some real food:

One of the worker's at Steak N Shake came to talk to Penny about the owie on her head and he kept telling her that daddy did it and when she finally graced him with a smile, he decided she must get 2 scoops of ice cream and then he came back with exactly that. So she got 2 scoops of ice cream before her dinner was even served. Lucky for me she decided to eat her food first because apparently vanilla ice cream did not strike her fancy.

After dinner we went to the hotel and took a swim in the indoor pool. The kids had s blast but I was a bum and still found the pool too cold and stayed in the Jacuzzi. At least Benny felt similar and spent most of the time with me:

Easter Egg Monsters

Thursday night, to celebrate the start of Spring Break, we dyed some Easter eggs and then turned them into monsters. I bought fake dyeable eggs and they are great since we don't actually eat boiled eggs but they are not so great because they float when placed in vinegar...The kids worked hard to keep them under and in doing such hard work, they pretty much splashed the colored vinegar all over our dining room table. I figured I could wipe the colors right off but I was oh so wrong. I got some out with turpentine but we still have some lovely pink and green areas on our dining room table.

 Tyler even graced us with his presence for a bit and colored an egg too, with Penny's help of course:

After the eggs finished drying (which is an apparently hard thing to wait for) the kids got to work adding eyeballs, mouths, hair, and other monster like things. They especially loved the orange fluffy hair:

The results:

Stitches

All was well last Sunday until I decided to get off my lazy bum and make some dinner. I went to pull out a casserole dish from a top cupboard and in doing so cause a lid from another dish to fall. Miss Penny happened to be right below me and so instead of the lid shattering on the tile floor, it was cushioned by her head. It was truly horrible to look down and see her poor head and it seriously made me a little woozy. Thank heavens Tyler was home and had his senses about him. He quickly put a paper towel on her head and we went on a Sunday outing to Urgent Care.

When we finally got called back, I went back while Tyler stayed in the waiting room with the kids. The first step, after doing all the "traumatizing" weighing and measuring, was to clean out the wound. This was equally traumatizing for Penny. It took some pictures and videos on my phone to calm the little miss down.  

The the doctor came in and gave her 2 stitches. I don't know what was worse for Penny, the shots to numb the area or the actual stitches. It was not fun holding my baby down but she actually did pretty good, she was less of a fighter than when we were measuring her surprisingly. And afterwards, with the help of some apple juice she totally calmed down.

5 days later the stitches came out (I made Tyler take her for that one). Let's hope we don't have to go through this again!