Easter 2008

Easter seemed so early to me this year. I figure that has a little something to do with the fact that it came less than a week after St. Patrick's Day. It's really asking a lot to expect me to switch gears so quickly.

Fortunately, I am so organized and have all my Easter stuff in a bin. Unfortunately, it was in the garage, trapped beneath two of the very heavy Christmas bins. I was able to free it (3 days before Easter) with minimal grunts and groans and only one lost slipper. What joy the kids expressed when the lid came off and the colors came out! I was surprised to find my "misplaced" Valentine's Day decorations in there. I do seem to remember storing those two holidays together once upon a time. (I was even more surprised to find Chad's shoe shine stuff in the Easter box. Of all the unrelated places! I made him guess where they were and now he owes me a dinner.)

We tried something a little different (for us) this year. We had "fun" Easter on Saturday and "real" Easter on Sunday. I liked it better that way...less stress before and after church. Anyway, I've digressed. We decorated 2 1/2 dozen minus one eggs on Thursday night. (I ate one that erupted during boiling.) It was a good math problem for Daniel.

We really like to decorate eggs. I usually endure a high level of stress as eggs are dropped, plopped and slopped. I'm just waiting for a nasty lime green dye to get spilled and stain my floor and walls. Rebekah was especially good at making me gasp throughout the event. She pre-cracked them for us. Nathan had fun decorating, but reminded us that he wouldn't eat any. He's sworn off hard boiled eggs since last year's never ending supply of egg salad sandwiches. I like Leah's expression here and can't help but think that she's eyeing the competition
...which apparently was Daniel.


We went to a community Easter egg hunt at the high school on Saturday morning.
As it was 20 degrees, we looked more suited for cutting down a Christmas tree than gathering eggs, but what do you expect when Easter falls on March 23rd? They had the fields divided by ages and we were a little dismayed to find that we had 4 kids in four different categories. So Rebekah pretended she was 3 and Daniel pretended he was 6. Heck, I know there were true 6 year-olds bigger than him! I went with the girls and Chad with the boys. Joseph was in a cocoon in the stroller with me. All the eggs were labeled with local companies' names. They were waiting off to the side to give the kids even more sugary prizes if they presented the right eggs.

I thought we should have had hot chocolate once we got home...but that doesn't really seem fitting the holiday.

Later that day, we had our own Easter egg hunt. We hid our dyed eggs plus an additional 39 plastic ones.


Some eggs were harder to recover than others.









I bought some hoppy balls (you know...the kind you sit on and bounce all over the place?) for the kids that they had to find from clues in specially filled eggs. The smell of the rubber just about knocked me out. I still make a face when I go downstairs and step around them. I intend them to be outside toys, as soon as the weather cooperates.


The next day was Sunday and we were fortunate enough to be speaking in Sacrament Meeting. Chad's mom drove out to sit with Joseph and Rebekah while the rest of us sat on the stand. Leah, Nathan and Daniel gave a short talk, then we all stood up to sing "He Sent His Son" and Rebekah joined us for that. It would have been nice if she sang instead being so interested in the podium. Then I spoke, followed by a flute number and Chad finished up. The girls looked cute in their semi-matching dresses. The boys got new ties and Joseph got a new shirt. He then christened his new shirt (through his onesie) while grandma held him and endured to the end. I nearly put him in the women's bathroom sink after that, but used 20 baby wipes instead.

And that was our Easter 2008. Today I bought next year's Easter goods at 75% off. Long live Wal-Mart.




I'll try to post about April Fool's Day tomorrow. I've run out of time tonight. (It's no wonder since I blabbed on and on in this one!)

Sorry for the small pictures...I was economizing on space. Hopefully, Blogger will cooperate and allow you to click on them and make them bigger (huge, actually).