Happy Easter

 This year we made sure that we consciously kept Christ at the center of our Easter worship.  For example, we read the scriptures together every night during the week about what Christ did on that day and discussed it as a family.  We also invited people to come to church with us and worship together.  One of my friends accepted and it was wonderful to share that with her.  

However, we also had a great traditional Easter celebration with eggs, etc.  We like to paint eggs rather than dye them.  It allows for more fun creativity, in our opinion.  When Bella got bored of painting eggs, she started painting Peter.  She claimed, "You have something on your forehead, Peter.  Let me get that for you."  Proceeds to smear her paint covered fingers on his face.  Benjamin loved the idea.  "Oh yeah, I see it.  Here, let me get it."  Smears more.  Peter figured out the ruse right away.  "Mom, did I really have paint on me?"  He was not amused, but the other two sure were.

Christian always has wonderful ideas in his head of how the eggs will turn out and sadly almost never successfully achieves his ideal.  This year was no exception.  He got so upset and "left them to dry so I can apply another coat later" but never returned.  I'm so glad he keeps trying again, though, year after year.  Peter painted every egg yellow and blue - his favorite colors at the moment.

We hunted easter eggs this year according to a new pattern.  I found a paper online with a plan for an adult easter egg hunt where the winners get money.  I thought that would appeal to my teenagers.  Here's the paper:

So, you collect eggs that are numbered and according to which number you get, you add/subtract/double/give away money.  Benjamin was the grand winner with $15.  Which is funny because he's the worst egg finder.  Bella had 20 eggs by the time Benjamin had 2.  I knew that and placed several at his eye level so he'd find them, but everyone else would pass by.  Worked like a charm.  Everyone was running around so fast, I could barely get any pictures.  I filled 10 eggs (all blue) for Peter and hid them in easier to find spots.  He was thrilled and ate his loot while we played the money game at the table with the others.

After church Christian wanted all of us to play football down at the high school.  Bella refused to come but everyone else came.  It was a lot of fun to play together.  Benjamin is, of course, the best, but Christian is a really hard one to catch as he bolts down the field, cutting and weaving.  Kelly could only run very carefully with his knee brace thanks to his ACL tear, but he came up with clever plays that still got him a touchdown.  I won't comment on my plays.  I'm just happy when I catch the ball.  Although, I have to say that I'm getting better now that Christian is begging me to play with him every day.

Peter had fun riding his bike around on the smooth field and running up and down the bleachers.

Bella gets asked a lot to babysit for members of the ward, but I always tell them, "She really doesn't like kids very much but she'd love to watch your pets." Understatement - she seems to really hate little kids, but cats have her heart every time. Easter week, she got two cat sitting jobs.  One came to our house.  This is Violet.

On the second day Violet designated Christian as her favorite human and spent the whole week on his bed.  At night she would snuggle with him and wake him up for pets.  Violet was a sweet (but kind of sassy) cat and fun to have around after being without a cat for so long now.  However, it was also great proof that I am truly done with fur babies.  I can't handle the fur, the litter, and the work.  I was happy to give Violet back. I've got enough work with my human babies.