Easter 2011

After reading this article on LDS Living's website, we decided to celebrate Easter as a season, instead of just a one day only holiday.  A few years ago we wrote to inform the Easter Bunny that we needed him to visit us on Friday night instead of Saturday night, so Easter Sunday would remain a religious holiday, for the most part.  But this year we also incorporated a week long of activities to go with it.  I found this family's idea on Sugardoodle's website, and we copied it, adjusting a little for our kids' ages.  For FHE the first night, we did the EASTER activity it describes.  The kids got a kick out of the puppet, and thought I was crazy, but it was fun and we enjoyed it. 

Tuesday we did an Easter crossword puzzle from the Friend that I copied onto posterboard.  I'll have to make it harder next year.  It was too easy.

Wednesday we had a Jerusalem dinner.  I made the flatbread recipe from Sugardoodle, which was really good with honey.

We ate hard-boiled eggs, fish, raisins, salad with garlic and vinegar dressing, grapes, crumbled goat cheese, and chopped dates.  I was nervous to feed my family different foods, but, with the exception of the fish, there was very little complaining.  We ate by candlelight on a low table, sitting on the floor.  (Ok, the kids all sat on low chairs and stepstools, and Scott wussed out and sat on a chair, but I was authentic and sat on a pillow on the floor).  It was such a nice, peaceful, pleasant dinner.  The first we've had in more months than I can count.  I don't know if it was the candlelight, or the conversation as we talked about Christ's crucifixion and the three days of darkness that followed for the Nephites, but it was a wonderful night.  Next year we will dress the part.  That was just too big an undertaking with twins:)

You can just see one of Brighton's eyes behind Savannah on the far right.

We kind of petered out the rest of the week, but we did read the scriptural accounts in the New Testament.  On Sunday morning we had Resurrection rolls for breakfast.  I found the recipe here, but I've seen it all over blogland.  They were really good, and the kids were amused by the hollowness. (is that a word?)  Then we read the resurrection account in John and watched The Lamb of God.  Brighton, with his love of all things construction-related, was intrigued with the nails that were hammered into Christ's palms, and winced when the soldiers hammered them in.  It seemed to make an impression in his young mind.

On Saturday the kids found their Easter baskets.  They all got kites, which will never have a maiden voyage, thanks to a set of twins.

Brighton got a set of goggles, for eye protection during his construction work, and his own tape measurer.  He was very excited! 

Irelynd got modeling clay.  Can you tell how she feels about it?

Later Saturday we hosted a neighborhood egg hunt, potluck lunch, and egg dying party at our house.  We used to do this in our old neighborhood, but since we moved, we missed it this year.  It was fun to get to know some of our new neighbors, who braved the cold, rainy weather to come.

Afterwards the kids all sat on the grass to count, compare, and trade.  My kids did their best to put it all away. 

There was a last minute dash for the remaining eggs hidden for the older kids. 

Sunday we went to my Mom's for Easter dinner and another family egg hunt.  My mom has a tradition of filling her eggs with money instead of candy, which my kids really love.  As do the adults:)  This year she hid 4 $5 money eggs, of which our family found 2.  Go Team Henry!

And the race is on!  Run!

Brighton and his goggles were inseparable that day.  He was more interested in digging in the turkey mulch instead. 

This was the result of a busy week of festivities:) 

You've been egged!

I found this fun idea on the Super Mommy blog and we decided to implement it as part of our Easter traditions.  Because of all the rain and snow we've had lately, it took us 8 days before we found a night that wasn't frigid or wet.  We egged 3 houses in our new neighborhood.  It was a lot of fun to see their kids come out in their pj's and search for the eggs with flashlights in hand while we hid in the shadows.

Return if found

One day last week we couldn't find Brighton.  We checked the neighbor's house he's gotten "lost" at before, and around the block.  Finally we checked down the street at the house of his new BFF.  And found him.  While Savannah and I were looking, Irelynd was busy making these signs.  She put our address on the bottom, and was coming out to find me to ask about a photo of Brighton.  It's what one does to find a lost puppy, right?  Why not a lost brother?  Great thinking, Irelynd!

The danger of underestimation

What do you get when you take this:

plus a pair of these?

Well, a lot of things.  But today I got this:

That is the severed cord of my sewing machine.  While it was plugged into the wall.  Here is the resulting damage to the scissors:  It's hard to see it, but that is a hole in the blades, and a chip out of the other side.

Here's the reverse side. 

Amazingly, miraculously, Keaton survived the incident.  After I stopped pounding my head against the wall, I realized how lucky we were that he wasn't seriously hurt.  With the hole carved out of my pair of Gingher scissors, it could have done some serious damage to him.  Luckily for Keaton, and my Easter skirts I was in the process of completing, Scott tells me he can repair it.  Will I ever learn not to underestimate the amount of damage my little angels can do, given an unsupervised 10 minutes of time???

Hammer time

Brighton loves tools.  And construction vehicles.  And building shows.  He gets giddy when a remodeling show is on tv.  He must have been a builder in heaven.  One warm day I came home from a school event to find him in the backyard with Scott, building a bird house.  Scott even showed him how to use his cordless drill, which scared me a little bit.  Brighton was on cloud 9.  Even Waverly got in on the action.  It's a good thing she's so girly, surrounded during the day by boys.

Sometimes it's helpful to grit your teeth when hammering. 

Keaton was content to play with the trucks

Brighton would drill, then blow, drill, then blow.

All done and ready for paint!  Brighton drilled the bird holes himself, can you tell?

Getting a fresh coat of paint.  Almost ready for occupants!

Happy April Fool's day!

For April Fool's day this year we did our usual tricky lunches and silly dinner.  We didn't do as many pranks this year.  We tried the saran wrap across the door thing.  Totally didn't work.  We also stuffed their shoes with newpaper, and short-sheeted their beds.  I'll have to up my game next year. 

For their lunches, I switched the bags of chips around, so Savannah got Doritos instead of the Cheetos she was expecting, Sprite instead of water, gummy worms in her strawberries, and a plastic snake in her ham and cheese sandwich.  You can see the head sticking out if you look closely.

The twins didn't even bat an eye when I sat them down to this table setting.  Keaton acted like he eats every day with a huge serving fork. 

I printed a menu of silly names, and everybody decided which items they wanted first.  So, we ate cupcakes first, got our napkins halfway through, and water almost at the end.

These are waffle and ice cream bowl, intended to look like taco bowls.  I didn't fool anyone with this.

I made these cupcakes with inspiration from mymixofsix.  They have cotton balls baked into them.  I had to turn them upside down and frost them to hide the cotton ball.  It took the girls a few bites to find them.  When they did, we convinced them it was cotton candy.  Irelynd kept eating it, saying "yum!"  One bite and she realized it wasn't "yum."  Scott and I were busting up.

Jello in a cup.  I had Savannah and Brighton fooled with this one, which is funnier because Brighton helped make them.

Pizza bundt "cake."  This fooled no one, and was really gross.  Which was very disappointing because it smelled so delicious cooking.  Not a fan of Bisquick.

I'm so grateful for all the fun blogs out there and the creative women who share their fun ideas.  I would never have thought of making April Fool's day into a fun family tradition.  My kids look forward to it, though they have yet to pull a prank on us.

They call it a "twin" mattress for a reason

On Saturday we put the twins down for a nap so we could actually watch the second session of conference.  Later when we went to wake them up, we found them both cuddled up together on Brighton's bed asleep. 

I couldn't resist pulling back the blankets to get a picture of their cute little piggies together.

Our little "squirt"

Keaton loves to squirt things.  Oh, how he loves to squirt.  Sometimes I wonder if it's the squirting he loves, or the clean up afterwards.  However, I finally got smart and gave him a squirt bottle of his own filled with colored water.  You'd think this would have occurred to me months ago, and I would have avoided many messes involving oven cleaner, windex, disinfectant with bleach, hornet killer, Lysol, etc etc.  But no, it didn't and I didn't avoid the messes.  Oh well.  It was like Christmas to Keaton last week when I finally presented him with a "legal" spray bottle and told him to have at it.  Huge grin.  Huge.

Can you just see the joy on his face?   I think Brighton was hiding under that box.