Oden Adventures

Every year our church puts on an "Eggstravaganza" event for Easter season ~ and this year was our first time attending!  It was a lot of fun and Vianne especially had a great time!

We had a little down time in the nursery before the event began...

 Then Vianne went right for the bouncy house.  That's her friend Leilla doing the handstand!

Then it was time for the first little ones' egg hunt of the day.  I have always said that I would never subject my children to a public Easter egg hunt because they seem to always turn out badly...but this one was totally low-key and fine and all the children got plenty of eggs and no one got trampled... :-D

Below is Vianne with our friend Jaimie & her son Canyon, a pal of V's.

 Checking out her loot

 Oliver took a nice long nap through almost the whole thing!

 There were many game booths to try out...

 ...catching rubber duckies...

 ...bowling...

 (each game had candy or toy prizes!)

 ...gold coin toss...

 (she picked out the "hairy pirate" magnet toy :-D)

 ...the ball-into-cup toss...

 ...knock-down-the-cans-with-bean-bags...

 ...and definitely a highlight of the day, face painting with Elsa!  Vianne waited so patiently for her to finish a couple other girls and when it was finally her turn, magic happened.  This dear Elsa-lady was totally on Vianne's wavelength: she looked down and saw V shyly beaming up at her, and she said, "Can I give you a hug?"

 Then she invited her up on her lap...

 ...and then they just sat grinning at each other for about two minutes, as if this whole face painting nonsense was irrelevant, and all that was important was that they were together, and everyone else just faded away.  I have never seen a total stranger connect with her (or take the time to connect with her) in such a sweet way; it seriously made my heart explode!

 Then Vianne put in her request to be "Ariel"...

...and some red 'curls' and a tiara later, we were off to the petting zoo!

 This little lamb (closely guarded at all times by her mama) was too sweet!

 Goats!  And a bunny!

 

So much fun!  We're looking forward to next year already!