Easter Baskets, Courtesy of Jesus

THE BUNNY HATH RISEN!!!

(. . .that's what we're celebrating around here, right guys?)

Anywho.  It's Easter.  Again.  Another year of painstaking preparations for a fifteen-minute blitz of insanity that ends with our kids eating candy for breakfast, and Kris and I chugging coffee while trying to get the family around for an obligatory, too-early-in-the-morning church session.

Behold.  Easter '15 (feat. the Houghs):

The kids stumble into the living room, pissed because the Easter Bunny neglected to lay any candy-filled eggs around the house (as you can tell from this picture's background, my kids should probably go to an optometrist soon.)

After the kids ransacked the house for plastic Easter Eggs (that we'll still be stumbling upon weeks from now, I'm sure), it was time for the annual Easter Basket Scavenger Hunt.  Since both of our kids can read now, we decided to just write it out instead of relying on my rusty art skills for clues. . .

Everybody poops, Internet.  Relax.

(I'll spare you that picture - just rest assured it pointed the kids to Alayna's keyboard.)

. . . we should have written 'where Abby's supposed to keep her shoes.'  Otherwise they'd never find the next clue, as Abby kicks off her shoes EVERYWHERE.

A lot of effort goes into five minutes of too-early-in-the-morning crap around these parts. . .

Dumbstruck.

Every year Kris insists on buying the girls new dresses to put in their baskets, which I'm cool with (we're both in the mindset that tangible goods far outweigh candy and chocolate as far as basket contents go.) 

What can I say.  The girl likes Pez.

Another Disney Infinity figure - Alayna's been wanting Baymax (from Disney's Big Hero Six.)

Monster High's pretty popular around these parts, too.

Watson bides his time. . .

This was for the girls' benefit - none of what you see here was purchased specifically for Watson's Easter Basket - we just used the existing basket we keep his toys in and threw in some leftover 'grass' from the girls' baskets and some not-yet-consumed dog items from our usual grocery trips.  Don't worry - we're not those people.  Yet. 

Abby's been asking for Maleficent (who now resembles Angelina Jolie instead of the villain from Sleeping Beauty.)

Easter Egg spoils (I ate all the black ones.  And regret nothing.)

Healthy breakfast.

Not pleased he didn't get a chocolate bunny.

Later in the morning, we figured we'd check out what was going on at Kris' church (I hear Easter's a big day for churches.)

Here, after the service, the girls ate some complimentary cupcakes. . . because they hadn't yet consumed their week's worth of sugar before 11am.

Another Hough Family Easter tradition - driving over to the Voigts' house for Easter lunch/dinner (is there an equivalent to Brunch for this?)

Scary Bridge. (Not sure if it has a real name, but that's what I've been calling it for seven years now.)

Causing a ruckus on the Voigts' back porch.

When we got home, we let the girls watch a movie while we worked on a few things around the house.  What did they want to watch?  The Who's Amazing Journey - a documentary about the band released in the 1970s, which I own and introduced the girls too a couple months ago.  I will now start accepting all nominations for Father of the Year.

- Brian

Randoms from the Month of. . . (I Forget Which Roman God 'February' Stands for)

Hi America.  How we feelin' this evening?

Time once again for your monthly installment of all things Random, the February Edition.

Enjoy, folks.

Kris gets crafty with the Cannonball, whose 1st grade class was creating t-shirts in preparation for their 100th day of school.  They had to create a t-shirt with 100 things on it, so her teacher suggested to her classmates that they draw 100 individual things on their shirts.  This, to Kris, was blasphemy. . . especially when there was the chance to Bedazzle.

In addition to the 100-random-crap shirt, kids were also encouraged to dress up like an old person. . . 'cause, you know. . . sometimes old people live to 100.  Probably not me, though.  Here, Alayna demonstrates how to operate a 'walker' (converted from the frame of one of Abby's baby doll swings.)

Getting ready for school.

Abby demanded her picture taken as well.  As usual.

See the old timer on the left?  According to multiple six-year-old sources, that guy is Alayna's big love interest.

Getting schooled.

(Old ladies carry umbrellas, too. . . right?)

February 2015 could very well be remembered as being the month that both of my kids became obsessed with Star Wars.  As you'll be so good as to recall, I successfully introduced them to the greatest cinematic franchise on Earth using the Machete Order, and they've watched a lot of the movies ever since.  However, it wasn't until I allowed them to play with my old action figures that they really grew fanatical about it (you have NO idea how hard it was letting them touch my sacred toys, too - they were under intense supervision, and they weren't allowed to play with any of the weapons, as I didn't want them to get lost.)

Shit like this started appearing on their homework.  Here, Abby shows us Things That Begin with the Letter 'Y.'

After a few days of allowing them to carefully play with my old Kenner toys from the '80s, I decided that they should really just own Star Wars toys of their own (more or less 'cause I didn't want my vintage ones messed up, but let's just pretend that I'm a good parent and wanted them to have nicer, up-to-date toys instead.)  Alayna picked out an Anakin Skywalker toy from Target one day while we were out and about, which I'm not 100% cool with (seeing how the Prequels are horrendous at best), but at least its Episode III Anakin and not the retarded kid from Episode I.

Seeing how individual action figures run around $6 - $10, I realized the financial implications of getting my kids in Star Wars toys.  Eventually, after spending waaaay too many hours in front of my computer researching Star Wars action figures, I came across three sets of figures available on Amazon.  What was cool about these sets - which I got for about $15 apiece - was that you got six free-standing figures (each came with a base, so young kids can play with them easily) from each of the movies.  They're more mini-statues, too; there's no moving limbs and no removable weapons/accessories, so the likelihood of breakage - a major selling point for me - is considerably diminished.  Long story short, for $45, my kids now have a wide variety of sturdy, high-quality figures from the original Star Wars trilogy.  Bad-ass fatherhood defined, Internet. 

Speaking of bad-ass fatherhood - the other day Alayna came up to me and asked to watch Episode I.  I never told her about this cinematic abortion, but I guess she figured it out that there had to be a first movie seeing how I refer to the Prequels as Episode II and Episode III.  I tried dissuading her, describing its utter terribleness, but she said she just wanted to 'watch it and get it out of the way.'  Ten minutes in, she wanted to turn it off, but I refused - she was going to watch the whole damn thing.  Just like back in the day when parents used to sit their kid down and make them smoke a whole pack of cigarettes if they were caught smoking one, my kid watched the entirety of Episode I.  And hated it.  I'll be expecting a medal in the mail.

Yeah, we own this.  It's not nearly as fun as you remember.  For out of shape parents, it's pretty brutal.

Divvying up plunder.

Alayna's new musical obsession?  The Who.  She likes their weirder tracks, obviously - 'Cobwebs and Strange,' 'Boris the Spider,' ' Heinz Baked Beans,' etc. - but she also likes some of the tracks off Tommy, which is awesome.

(They're watching a kids' yoga DVD.)

Found this on one of the white boards in my Studio at work.  Pretty much sums Mr. Hough up.

We grew some tangerines this year.  Sort of.

Showing Alayana how to draw maps for a school project.  I wish she had more homework like this and less 'write the definition of this word three times'. . . Common Core is straight up destroying the fun in school for this generation.

(Not sure what's in her hand, but she wanted a picture with it.)

Having a Manhattan for dinner?  Must be a Friday.

Getting ready to walk Watson around the subdivision. . .

Alayna usually spends her weekends playing with two of the neighbor kids (and sometimes their younger and older siblings -   Three houses down on the left and the house immediately on our right, respectively.)  So there's always tons of toys littered around the front of our house.

The Cannonball, really getting into piano practice.

Abby, posing with a new outfit she picked out.

Bunny ears are hilarious.

Alayna had to write a page using ten of her Spelling Words for the week (words with the 'oi'/'oy' sound, as you can see.)  Remember the grandpa-looking kid from earlier (see above)?  Apparently our first grade sources were on to something. . .

Sugar, without any of that bothersome 'food' to go along with it.  Abby's ultimate snack.

Make-up time in a tent.  Yes, we set up a tent on our back patio.  And it has been up for a couple months now.

She wanted a picture of this.  'Cause this is really important.

Showing off some new winter coats.

- Brian