A White Easter

Our Easter included it all - candy, throw up, new dresses, diarrhea, tulips, snow, terror, excitement, etc. etc. It was quite the week. The good and the bad.

The Sunday before Easter is when the girls wore their new "Easter dresses". I bought these before I realized we wouldn't even be going to church on Easter Sunday. They were sure excited and happy about wearing new dresses for the Sunday before though.That evening we got to celebrate Brian's birthday at their house, so the girls got to at least be dressed up in Easter dresses with their cousins too.The party at Brian and Rachel's was fun for everyone. Our week went down hill from there (but then it picks up again for Easter at least). Monday night Scott and I went on a date. I met him downtown after work and we went to dinner (Z Tejas. Delicious.) and then the Jazz game. We had a great time together and then came home to Brielle throwing up . . . . all. night. long. Zach got it next. Then by Thursday I was sick with the same and Friday it hit Scott. We were really, really sick. It also snowed all week. Really, really snowed. Sooooooooooooooooooooo . . . we stayed home and tried to pretend it felt like springy Easter time and made a craft each day.

Toilet paper roll chicks.
Easter bunny candy jars.
Marshmallowy nests and bird eggs.
Coloring Easter eggs.
By Saturday everyone was better, so we made an effort to leave the house in between sessions of Conference for an Easter egg hunt at Wheeler Farm. We love Wheeler Farm and thought it would be fun to be outside hunting eggs with the girls and seeing the baby animals. We got there, with baskets in hand, to find this sign. Well, they ALWAYS have wagon rides. And if they are going to advertise to children that there will be an egg hunt, I say they should probably have some eggs. Scott and girls really searched the area just in case there might just be one little ole egg left, but found nothin'. Absolutely nothing.
They did have wagon rides and baby animals though.Finally the moment arrived when the house was totally clean and disinfected from germs (we spent Saturday listening to conference and cleaning), the girls were in bed and we were waiting for the Easter Bunny to come. Then we heard Ava still awake on the stairs. She was really crying. Why? Because she was so scared of the Easter Bunny coming. She begged us to lay with her in bed. She laid there just mumbling about the Easter Bunny coming into our house. I can see why that might be scary. I told her he was just a tiny, cute, nice, furry, white baby bunny. He would knock on our door and give mommy her candy and then hop away. Not come in the house. She would think about that for a minute and then say, "Then the BIG Daddy bunny open the door and come in Ava's room." Terrified. After an hour of playing out scary bunny stories in her mind, she finally fell asleep. We set up Easter baskets and then Evan joined us for the watching of "Fever Pitch" in honor of the Red Sox opening day that was also happening the next day.And just as you would hope and expect for a beautiful Easter morning, it snowed all night, so we awoke to a white Easter. But the girls were thrilled! They were so excited about Easter baskets . . . . . . and an egg hunt . . .
. . . and that the Easter bunny brought Uncle Evan to play with.On Easter day we tried to listen to conference while we got ready for everyone to come for Easter brunch. I was in the kitchen making six quiche (spinach sausage, bacon mushroom and ham hash brown). Scott was setting up and helping me. And then at 12:30 we had Brian, Rachel and kids, Fred, Rama, Landon, Sarah and kids, Tawna, Lindsey (roommate), Evan, Kristina all here for a fun brunch. We had quiche, cinnamon rolls (made by Landon and so good!), hot cross buns, lots of fruit, O.J. and all the Easter candy anyone could eat. I guess things got so busy by then that I have no more pictures of the day, but believe me, it was so fun to have everyone. It made for a beautiful and perfect Easter.

Path Through Palestine

We just finished putting on a Primary activity. The activity was to help the kids understand and know a little bit more about Christ's life. Our theme in Primary this year is "I Know My Savior Lives". We are studying Him all year. We thought this activity would be especially important right before we celebrate Easter. It came together well, although not exactly as I imagined it.

We invited the Primary kids to come on a tour of the Holy Land with us. They arrived and were put into groups, assigned "tour guides" (the 11 year olds) and given maps of Palestine to follow. They traveled to 6 rooms and had to have the person in that place stamp their map to show they had been there. The people in most of the rooms were invited guests (girls from BYU) that just got back from studying at BYU Jerusalem. They had pictures, souvenirs and stories to share from being there.They went to Bethlehem. Here they saw a nativity made of olive wood from Jerusalem and pictures of actual Bethlehem today. They also talked about the nativity story, dressed up and acted it out.The Jordan River. The kids talked about baptism, Jesus' baptism, saw a slide show projected on the wall of the Jordan River, sang the baptism song and played a game.
The Sea of Galilee. Here they were told the stories of Jesus calling his apostles and calming the stormy sea. They saw a slide show of pictures of the Sea of Galilee and went "fishing" in a fishing pond for bags of gold fish crackers.Gethsemane. The kids saw pictures of the actual garden of Gethsemane filled with olive trees. They also saw olive oil made from those olive trees and the olives and olive branches. We did activities to learn more about what happened there as we put together a puzzle of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.On to Jerusalem. Here they had a mini version of a seder or passover dinner. They learned a lot and tasted a lot. They had grape juice for wine, salt water, parsley (bitter herbs), unleaven bread, dates, etc. I think this was a really neat room to experience.The matzah.
Setting for Elijah.
And they ended at The Garden Tomb. Here we saw a slide show of pictures from what they believe to be the tomb where Jesus was laid. We read "The Garden" (wonderful book) and they colored their own little books to take home about the resurrection. We also had Easter sugar cookies to make up for the parsley we just served them.

I was honestly so exhausted after planning, setting up and putting on this activity. I hope that from our work the children in Primary felt more for why we celebrate Easter. And certainly I hope they felt more for and gained a deeper appreciation and relationship with our Savior. I am so grateful to know that He lives, who once was dead.

Did Jesus really live again?
Yes, when the third day came,
He wakened and he left the tomb;
He called Mary’s name.

Did Jesus come to those he loved?
Yes, people touched his feet,
And of the fish and honeycomb
He did truly eat.

And there were nailprints in his hands
And a spear wound in his side.
Did Jesus really live again
After he had died?
Oh yes! And so shall I!

Pinkalicious!

My sister Laura gave the girls the book "Pinkalicious" when Zachary was born. They L.O.V.E. this book. We were reading it one night before bed and we made a plan to make pink cupcakes the next day. Some of us were sure we would turn pink if we ate too many pink cupcakes, just like Pinkalicious. Well, take it from the one who ate the most pink cupcakes . . . I did not turn pink. We did eat some delicious cupcakes and even got to deliver some to the neighbors (so I wouldn't keep testing the experiment).

St. Patrick's Day 2010

St. Patrick's Day was celebrated in full force around here. Scott's grandpa is from Ireland, so we felt the need to be supportive of this holiday . . . until Landon told us the real story of St. Patrick. Well, it's still fun to dress in green and turn everything green and most especially, eat corned beef and cabbage.

It started with a very fun Playgroup St. Patty's Day party. The kids got to play musical chairs, which we soon found out is not a game for 2 year olds. They all burst into tears when they didn't have a chair. By the end of the game every mom was holding a crying child. So funny. They also set a trap for a Leprechaun, did a craft, had lunch and got to run wild. Good time. I had the bright idea for us all to head downtown for the St. Patrick's Day parade the Saturday before. I thought it was going to be nice weather. It was not. We watched about half of the parade in the cold and then retreated indoors when it started pouring rain. It really snowed the whole rest of the day. So, maybe in honor of St. Patrick's day, Scott turned on the Christmas lights on our house that night. It was a winter wonderland. (Yes, the lights are still on our house.)On St. Patrick's day I served the girls green scrambled eggs and green milk for breakfast. I ate it with them and let me tell you, it was not all that appetizing, but they thought I was pretty tricky. But our dinner . . . yum. We had Landon, Sarah and kids over for the party. We played Irish music and served corned beef brisket that had been cooking for hours. We also had potatoes, carrots, cabbage, bread and then mint ice cream sandwiches for dessert. Delicious! (P.S. If you remember, the shamrock on the table is a shamrock that Scott's grandparents brought from Ireland over 40 years ago. Cool, huh? And it's even still alive at our house!)
And a Happy St. Patrick's Day to all!

The boy can eat!

Zachary has been eying our food while we are eating for a few weeks now. The girls have offered him every type of food, but he just can't do fishy crackers yet. I so much don't like the baby food feeding stage though that I was trying to hold him off. He would be held off no longer. There I was with mashed potatoes and apple sauce on my plate . . . perfectly edible 5 month old food . . . and I gave in. And he loved it! He munched it down better than I've seen either of the girls ever do.

So, we started giving him rice cereal and he is downing that too. We'll see if maybe, hopefully we can get some baby chunk rolls on this one. Begging for more. Pleeeeaaaaaaassssssssse!
One happy, fed boy!

Smile!

Here are some of the smiles from around here recently. . . .

Scott and Zachary all dressed up for church working on HT lists on the couch. I thought they looked quite handsome together.
Brielle went to the dentist for a cavity yesterday. Scott took her and said he was crying watching her in that big chair with all of that work happening on her. I was crying with the pictures he was sending home on his phone. How awful for a little four year old, right? Well, she didn't mind in the least. She had no problem going, no problem climbing into the chair and lying still, no problem with the work they did and no problem once the numbness wore off (except that she had chewed up the inside of her lip so much). This is her half numb smile when she got home. It was cracking me up.Ava still has a hard time figuring out how to force a smile for the camera. Here is her best attempt. Hilarious. She's really trying.Zachary smiling through a mouthful of rice cereal.After Zachary gets all sloppy, dirty and covered in rice cereal he "chases" the girls around the kitchen to give them a big, wet kiss. They go screaming and running. Aaaaaah . . . Here he comes! (Brie took the pictures.)Here is a smile from Ava's person. Ava has started drawing people "just like di di does". It's so funny to hear her talk her way through the drawing, "big circle, polka dot, polka dot, mouth, other mouth, arm, arm, leg, other leg, body." The scribble at the bottom of the circle is the body, of course.