Good Friday

We had a great time Good Friday.  The weather was sunny and warm the kids were off, again.  It was nice having them back at school 3 days before they had another day off.  This March they were home more than they were at school not by sickness but by holidays and breaks.  Having them home can be a lovely thing except they attend private school and tuition is the same whether they are at school or home.  And secondly March has been so snowy and cold we were all stuck inside.  That is why Good Friday was such a good Friday with the warm sunshine I decided a day at the park was what we needed.

I packed up six lunch boxes and we were gone.



Do you remember when you were a child on a field trip and the teachers would but all the lunches in a large box to make it easy to transport them, I kinda felt like that.  These kids were hungry too they lightened my load as soon as they could.

We drove up the "mountain" to Blue Ridge Summit where we did not count on the temperature to drop as much as it did , plus it was shaded and a bit windy up there too.  The kids quickly said its cold lets go back to a park at our home!  I can't blame they I was cold too.  But I did not want to pack everyone back up so I went to the truck.  Having little babies and boys I almost always an extra set of clothes for each child with me.  This time I only had clothes for the tiny team.  Ugh, what to do?  I took the extra shirt I had for Faith a tiny 24 month thing and put in on my Smiley under his long sleeve shirt.  It was tiny on him.  I took Smiley extra 4T shirt and put it on Evan who wears a 6/7 under his long sleeve shirt also.  It was tiny on him too.  The two small shirts on the boys were like 3/4 sleeve and mid drifts!  It was funny but that is why I had them put the small ones under there normal clothes and you know what they were warm and never complained again.  I gave Gregory my jacket since he dressed in short sleeves to the weather at the house.  And the girls I had wanted to get a picture of them in their semi matching outfits so I had overdressed them at home.  They were both wearing turtlenecks and the matching similar ponchos.  They were fine.  All were warm and happy, ready to play, but I was chilly now oh well sometimes that happens being mom.





Gracie was so happy to crawl around and play.

There was a huge play set that they went up and down the slides on.





It had a rock wall they enjoyed too.  But the girls had fun playing on the lower levels.



Sister kisses

It had a few of these poke hole windows and the kids mostly ate there lunches up in them.  It was great watching them play and use their imaginations.  It was great being out of the house.



But what they like the best was swinging.  They kept calling this blue swing the big chubby swing.  It was funny except for the argument of whose turn it was for it.



Haha Faithy kept trying to push her Yaya (Gregory).



They have been asking me everyday can we take another trip to the park and have lunch.  It makes my heart smile when they enjoy time out with mom.  Of course we will do it again.  Snow is out of the forecast and we even are looking at some temperatures reaching 70 in the next 10 days!  Hallelujah!!  Winter is over and warm weather is on its way.

Decorating Delima

Decorating for holidays this year has been, well... almost non existent.  I should have been better about but I have not done much for any of them.  For Christmas I kept it very low key in only one spot of our house, mostly because the babies were eating, breaking, and throwing anything we put out.  Thanksgiving nothing, Halloween is now to far back for me to remember (sad isn't it), Valentines day well we did do a little.  I never shared it because this past week our family was hit hard and I mean HARD by a nasty virus.  It kept me home from school  I even called off to an online class because I could not get mine or my daughters head out of a bucket long enough to login.  Jay stayed home from work 2 days Both boys got sent home from school throwing up.  They made it 1 day last week, Friday.  It was bad.  I was lysoling everything.  The tiny team watching me spray stuff got a hold of the can and sprayed the baby!!!  But you know she was the only one not to get sick.  Uncomfortable and cranky yes but violently sick, no.  Maybe they are on to something.



It was bad.  Our whole town had it.  Or at least all m friends with kids locally on facebook, same thing.  But thankfully it is over!!

Back to Valentines.  The night before I took the children to a Valentines party at church we all had a great time.  Gregory asked mom what are we doing for Valentines this year.  I was surprised it came from him it is usually Evan who is the one most excited about holidays.  I explained to him in apology it wont be much this year son I have school and dad has work plus you have school but there you will have so much fun.  It was late as all our Wednesdays are and I sent the kids to bed.  I was serious it was not going to be a big over the top Valentines like we often have.  But of course I did not want them to not feel the love of the day.  They went to be and I started baking.



I made red velvet cheesecake for their dad plus a yummy warm breakfast in the morning   I told him I was not getting him any present this year not because I did not love him but he knows how crazy and sick we had been here.  Still no  excuse I know.  But I certainly did not want him to feel unloved either.  So don't you think I was surprised when he came home with dozens of roses for me.



And a cake under the kids suggestion.  They suggest it because they wanted it and they ate it, most of it anyways.

But I also pulled the kids in to.  Before they went to bed I had each of them tell me why they love their dad..



Okay so I filled in Gracies.  Every time I tried to get Faith to say something she would just stand there shacking her head like yes I love him.  She is so sweet.

I laid out chocolate hearts and candy for each of them plus dad and except Grace she got puff and yogurt bites.





Evan had spent the week making cards for everyone the were great.  I made one for him from his cat so he would get one too.  They woke up to a table full of treats.  It sure made them happy.  The were yelling and smiling and said mom the Valentines fairy? came?  Wait mom you do Valentines or is there a fairy?  :) No its me kids.  And then the kids went off to school and had a great day.

But now that Valentines is over we hit birthday season.  My middle sons is first.  In less than a week trust me has been in count down mood for a while.  After him the just keep coming every couple days in March is another birthday.  Really. we have the 4, 6, 14, 15, 17, 21, 22 by the time March is over we are sick of cake.  Often I decorate for birthdays but this year Easter is also in March the 31st.

If I decorate for Easter when do I do it?  after the 23?  or now?  I don't even know what we are doing for Easter yet.  I am hoping we are at the White House!  I find out Friday so keep your fingers crossed for us.  I know the kids want to do something special for it.  With as little as I have done this year I hope to make Easter very special, as it deserves to be.  Today I did put up an egg wreath on our door and it could not have made Evan happier.  At the end of the day I will pin more than I will do but I will start doing now and maybe by Easter it will be good.  We will see.

A frightful experience

The week before Easter  was full of holiday activities.  One of the ones I wanted to do was get a picture of the children with the Easter Bunny.  Wouldn't that be darling?

The day I had dressed them up and planed to do it was the day of the library Easter Egg Hunt. They day they unknowingly dyed eggs there and got dye on them in the first few minutes.  I took them home right afterward and stain treated their outfits.  I cleaned them, pressed them,  put them aside, and picked the kids up from school Monday afternoon and went straight to the mall.  In the parking lot they changed.

We went in to see the Easter Bunny at a great time no line no waiting.  No pressure to take the fist snap shot because there are many other families waiting either.  And that came in much needed.

I forgot how much kids hated the Easter Bunny in real life.  They did great with Santa.  Maybe that is why I had blocked out bad Easter Bunny trips in the past.  They walked up to the statuesque bunny holding still and oh so large.  All were okay at this point and then he moved.  It scared the two big kids like a figure out of a haunted house.  The babies were absolutely terrified.  Smiley ran, Faith cried worse than when she gets shots.  It was horrible.

The big kids got over it and were able to stand next to him.  Brendan I was able to talk into it only for a second at a time to sit on an egg in front of then bunny and near his brother.  Faith, my poor girl, just kept screaming.  Stress levels for all of us were high.  All my kids are scared and some crying.  I am sitting the poor things on the bunny of terror squatting 5 feet in front of them yelling stop crying and smile.  Great mom moment.

I gave up I figured a crying picture is cute too, sorta.  We will look back and laugh, right?  Not yet.  For now when the kids are acting up and I drive by the mall I have found myself saying don't make me stop and take you back to the bunny!  Another great mom moment.

We won't do this again next year.  But for this one at least it is over and at least they were all looking.

Oh my Easter...

This Easter season was busy and felt rushed.  I think because it just felt like another party, another celebrating event, backed up to our March madness birthday month.  In March we have one or two birthdays a weeks and it is draining.  This year Easter was less than 2 weeks after my daughters 1st birthday.

I wanted Easter to be everything that it is supposed to be celebrating the Resurrection and having special family time.  The kids and I managed to have many special family events spread over those two weeks.  But sometimes it was another event in a time of over booked schedules with AWANAS, swimming, too much baseball, fundraisers, work, church and cleaning.  I need to learn to slow down.

The kids attended a great Easter Egg Hunt and dyed eggs there but they were looking forward to doing it here too.  It is funny they know my distaste for it and kept reminding me of the colors on the floor last year.  This year with record warm temps in March and April we were able to head outside to dye the egg.  It was still stressful but they had a good time.





Faith looked like she wanted to join in.



But then we gave her a bag...



and she tried to eat it.  Typical Faith.



They did great.  They only broke 2 of the eggs we dyed and the mess was outside.



They were so proud of their eggs they could point out which one was theirs a week later.



A hard part of this year was the older boys figured out there was no Easter Bunny, it was mom.  It was not by friends telling them at school but I had left all the candy in the backseat of the Subarbun and they climed in before me, before I remembered to hide the candy.  I was a little sad but it did make it eaiser to shop for the rest of the basket stuff.  But because of this I wanted to make it more fun and special  for them.  I do believe they enjoyed the glow in the dark egg hunt the best.



What a fun time.  We all filled these sparkly clear eggs with glowing pieces with much more difficulty and tape  than we had imagined.  Once filled I hid the first round.  They ran around like crazy finding these glowing eggs.



Remember the flower photos we hung them in a tent with icicle lights.  It came out so pretty.



It was a glowing oasis the kids played under with their eggs.  They also hung art they had made inside the tent.



We watch HOP twice.  What a cute movie.  It was so good it even made the boys reconsider there newly found reality, and that the Easter Bunny or E.B. is real after all.  They were so excitied  for Easter to come.  And finally the night was upon us.  The boys set out traps to catch the pink barrets, form HOP.  They were sure they could.  I was sure they couldn't.  I left piles of jelly beans on the floor to let them know E.B. had been there.  (He poops jelly beans)



I dressed the table in less this year than normal.



But with such young babies crawling around pulling everything I was going to stress over them breaking stuff.  So i just did not put much out.



The boys picked out this basket for their sister.  They bought all the stuff for inside of it.  And helped her eat it.  Not by her choice they were just faster.  So fast I never got a picture of them Easter morning with there baskets.  They all ran down grabbed their basket and ran off to have a sugar overload before church.

I dressed my precious children in there Easter Sunday best.  They looked darling for 5 minutes.  Then they each had candy and breakfast over there clothes.  AWWW!  Before church.  Before I showed them off.  Before I got a family picture.

We went to church made it on time and enjoyed ourselves there.

Dirty or not jelly bean covered and all my Easter princess was beautiful.





She enjoyed the candy and the boys had another egg hunt for the candy filled ones E.B. had left them.  They all had more fun.



Me I wore a white lace dress with a simple bow and lose long hair.  Oh yeah and crocs.  I was a little sad I did not get a picture with the kids.  I will though.  It is supposed to be beautiful and warm this coming Sunday I will pack up the kids redress them and try with out candy.

Easter Egg Hunt

The children and I headed over to the library for there Easter egg hunt.  We had been looking forward to this all week.  The boys love hunting eggs.  After they find the ones around our house they re-hide them and will continue doing so for the next few days.

The first event they had was dying eggs.

We have yet to do this at our home so they were super excited.  Evan wrote on his with a special crayon then dyed it two colors half and half.

You can guess it only took a matter of minutes for them to get dye on their clothes.  So this turned out to be the last stop for us.  I had planned on taking them for pictures with the bunny but now with their multi colored clothes I will wait.  I did wash them as soon as I got home and the dye did come out.  They did end up making cute eggs.

Next was the anticipated hunt.  They were ready to go.  Can you believe I did not even think to bring baskets?  ugh.

They had grocery bags to use, but next year I will remember.  I hope.

Faith was so upset I would not let her down to crawl around and find eggs.  But it has been rainning this weekend and the ground was a bit muddy. I did not want her to ruin her clothes and get trampled by the bigger kids.

He brother still shared the candy with her and I will make sure she can hunt some at our house on Easter.

They found many.  Evan even found 1 of the 12 special eggs that had a ticket in it for a large prize.  He won a bag of jelly beans.

Besides candy they had darling cookies.  My babies helped themselves to a few.

I am so glad the weather held off from raining any further.  Even with a little dampness it was a lot of fun.  The kids are sugar high and looking forward again to next year.

Easter Resurrection Garden

Another great Easter craft is the resurrection garden.

Source: theencouraginghome.com via Susan on Pinterest

I knew it would be another thing my kids would love to do and watch grow.  Plus pretty inexpensive you probably have everything you need.



I bought the saucer and terra cotta pot.  Because that is what I saw in every other project.  I am not sure if you can use a plastic one.  Maybe but I stayed with what I saw just in case it was terra cotta to help with the water part.  Also I bought the smallest pot walmart had and it was to big.  Luckily I had a smaller terra cotta one in my shed

I went out and gathered a few twigs and used a hot glue gun to make the crosses.



I made extra because I thought they would break.

Then we went outside to make it.

Lay the pot on the saucer to be the tomb.  This is before I switched to the smaller pot.  Remember the dirt has to go on the sides and over the pot.  With this size it would have not been possible or it would have looked like a pyramid.  Fill the dirt on 1 side of the saucer.



Have your oldest watch the 1 year old so she stops making it a hundred times harder.



I found the only way to make the dirt stay and go over the pot was to turn it into mud.

Move 1 year old way back because she loves and did find the mud.





Take the grass seed and generously press in into the mound of mud.  Wet it with a spray bottle afterwards to help it ad-hear.



Place the crosses how you would like add a few stones in front and wait.  In ten days you should have a grassy hill.

It was a fun easy project.  I just hope the birds don't eat the seed.