Easter is Coming

 I'm getting excited for Easter.  I feel like Christmas always gets all the good lead-up and Easter gets shafted.  Christmas gets the decorations, the lights, the music, the clothing, the traditions, etc. etc. for a month before the big day and Easter gets the one day with the eggs and bunnies.  Yet, Easter is celebrating something of such monumental importance - the resurrection of Jesus Christ!  It's huge.  So this year I decided to start changing that.  It's been slow going so far, but I figure a little this year and more the next and hopefully we'll build up a few more Easter traditions than just the egg hunt.  I'm starting this year with reading "The Unexpected Deliverer," making a Christ themed Easter banner, and making an "Osterstrauss" and several lessons/activities related to those things.  For the Osterstrauss (a set of branches decorated with eggs), I needed eggs that can be hung, so Sunday we got out all our fabric, yarn, ribbon, scrapbook paper, modge podge, etc. etc. and got to work making some.  Sadly the kids didn't have as much fun as I did.  Bella made a few but wasn't happy with her creations.   Same with Christian.  However, I loved it. 

 I could have made more and more but when I was left alone at the table and Peter started whining, the joy slipped away. As a result, we ended up with very few and so I might have to make more or just buy some.  So that tradition is off to a rocky start, but I remain optimistic.  I think once they see the little Easter tree, they'll like it.  I need to think what we'll do on the actual day of Easter since we'll be gone in West Virginia until the day prior.

I bought Chick-fil-A for lunch for Bella today.  She's been asking me to buy it for her ever since I took her there on a girls' date.  We'd gone through the drive-thru and had spent 60 minutes in line.  I didn't ever want to do that again, but she's such a foodie and I'd been putting her off long enough.  Today only took 30 minutes but it's still a long wait for some silly fast food.  I didn't buy myself anything but the look on Bella's face when she came home and saw the lunch on the countertop was pay-off enough.  It was so cute.  I was also so happy with the way Peter behaved during that long wait.  He waited so patiently, so I took him to the playground on the way home and he was so happy.  He would never stay still for even two seconds so I could get a good picture.  He loved the twisty slide the best and did it over and over again until he was a little popsicle and we had to go home.

He still doesn't speak but the other day Christian and I were playing soccer and Christian yelled, "Goal" and Peter responded with "goal!" with nearly perfect clarity.  We were so shocked.  He has mimicked that sound a couple more times when Christian prompts him.  Also, he'll use a word similar to Cheese when he wants cheese.  It's like "chzzzzz."  Maybe he'll talk before he's 2 after all.