Ryan: Professional Egg Hunter

With Easter quickly approaching, we've taken on a new pastime in the Trammell house - egg hunts! We helped organize a hunt for our Young Families group at church this year, so we knew we had to get some practicing in so that Ryan wouldn't be trampled on the big day.

With Ryan as young as he is (and his attention span as short as it is), I wasn't sure if he'd really grasp the concept. Who knew it'd be such a hit -- some days we do half a dozen hunts throughout the day and Ryan's gotten really into it - even looking under furniture, pillows, etc. to find eggs.

Thankfully, all that practice paid off. The church hunt was today, and Ryan had a blast. He was walking around the house this morning saying "hunt, hunt, hunt" (his new favorite word, along with "bubble").

It was hard to capture any real egg hunting on film b/c Ryan wouldn't hold still (go figure). He did collect a few eggs, but had more fun climbing the cafeteria steps and sharing his eggs with others who "hunted" from his basket. :) Ha. That's what happens when you get 50+ toddlers and preschoolers in a room together. Here's a few pictures that I did grab on the move -- enjoy!

Thanks to the not-so-awesome weather, we held the hunt in the school cafeteria. You can imagine the chaos when we opened the doors -- here's one shot of some of the first kids to enter running for the loot:

Here's daddy and Ryan on the hunt -- you can barely see the top of Ryan's head and his little hand holding Stephen's hand. We had about 330 eggs on the floor and chairs in a pretty small room, so they were everywhere:

Here's Ryan showing mommy what he found in one of his eggs:

We ordered bunny masks for the kids - sooo cute! Here, Ryan models his for the camera:

Happy Easter!

Butterfly House

Today we met Aunt Karyn and cousin Autumn at the Butterfly House at Faust Park. We'd never been, but have heard that March is the best time to go b/c of the Blue Morpheus butterflies in massive quantities (making what is already a surreal experience surrounded by gorgeous creatures even more incredible).

What an awesome place to go -- there were butterflies EVERYWHERE, even one landing briefly on Ryan's belly. :) At times we felt like they were dive-bombing us, but it's incredible to watch them fly all around you. The conservatory is kept a steamy 85 degrees at 75% humidity year round, which means my camera lens was fogged up until we got used to the Amazon-like climate, but we still got some great shots!

Here's Ryan and daddy in front of a giant butterfly statue:

This is the beautiful Blue Morpheus -- looks pretty from the outside....

But check out the inside of its wings - the blue is so vibrant, it's breathtaking!

Here's a shot where you can see both colors:

There were so many different species -- some of which seemed more like hummingbirds, never stopping their wings, like this one, whose wings look almost transparent in this photo b/c he was flapping so fast:

This one had black and white spots:

This one looks like someone painted it - so gorgeous:

There's a strict "no touching" rule, but, Ryan did his darndest to reach out and grab one. Thankfully he was under daddy's watchful eye. :)

At last, here's Ryan and Autumn together on a sweet butterfly bench - you can't tell in the photo, but butterflies were zipping all around them -- and they loved it!

If you can make it in the next week or so before the Blue Morpheus butterflies are gone, I highly recommend it!