Happy Easter!

I hope you had a wonderful Easter holiday.  Our holiday has spread over the past two weeks, which works out well in a lot of ways.  We celebrated Easter with Grandma and Grandpa last Sunday with a yummy dinner at our house and an egg hunt for the kids.  I learned how to make Grandma's famous scalloped potatoes and learned a hard lesson about the dangers of the kitchen gadget called a mandolin.  I'm still missing the piece of my finger that got in the way of the blade.  But we ate a whole lot of yummy food, braved the gale force winds to hunt eggs in the yard, and just enjoyed some time together with them.  The kids loved it, and so did we.

 Lauren "assisting" Grandma with the potatoes.

 Assessing the loot from the egg hunt.  Holy cow do we ever have a lot of candy!

This week was an absolute whirlwind of Easter activities.  Joshua's Easter party at preschool was on Wednesday morning, and I was lucky enough to be there.  The kids painted some adorable Easter eggs, retold the Easter story that they had been learning over the past week, sang some fantastic songs, and baked resurrection buns (crescent rolls with cinnamon sugar marshmallows baked inside them that disappear...the tomb is empty, get it?)  Given the plethora of peanut products and peanut contaminated candies that show up at Easter, I preferred to be there to monitor the situation and give Mrs. Deitrick one less major issue to remember in the midst of the party.

Thursday I saved a little time in the evening to go to the Maundy Thursday service at our church.  I had gone last year and had been immensely blessed by it.  This year was much the same.  It was a beautifully haunting service that gave me the time to really reflect on the crucifixion.  So often I find myself spending my time and energy thinking about the resurrection part of Easter- because it's a whole lot more joyful.  But the Thursday and Friday parts of Easter are just as important.  And I love that this service brings our church together to do the hard stuff as a church family.

Friday afternoon, amidst the hustle of packing and preparing for our trip to Lewistown, I had an opportunity to participate in the prayer vigil.  Our church divides the Easter weekend into half hour time slots.  Church members sign up for slots to go to the church and pray.  I wasn't sure what to expect.  But when I got there, I found prayer requests that had been presubmitted and a sanctuary that had been beautifully decorated like a garden.  And that 30 minutes passed faster than any other 30 minute period I can recall.  What a blessing to be a part of something so special.

Jason and the munchkins met me in the parking lot when my prayer vigil spot was finished.  And we were off for a great weekend at Nana and Pap's house.  Libby was still recuperating from her wisdom teeth surgery on Thursday, but she was there too, ready for fun with her favorite niece and nephew.  There was much giggling, much running and chasing, many Easter eggs to be hunted and a whole bunch of food to be enjoyed.  It was awesome.

The kids' table at our Easter dinner on Saturday evening.  (Aunt Libby sat at the 4th chair!)

These are slightly out of order, but I'm done fighting with Blogger this evening. Don't the kids all look adorable in their fancy Easter clothes?

We had a little sing along at Club Bob on Saturday afternoon.  The kids loved it!

And a quick shot of the kiddos ready to head downstairs to hunt for eggs.

It really was a great weekend.  We were all happy to have spent a great weekend with our family in Lewistown.  Being there makes me miss them even more.  Joshua has started really having a hard time when it's time for us to leave to come home.  Today there were quite a few tears when it came time for goodbyes.  Poor buddy seems to have inherited my emotional tendencies--- wears his heart on his sleeve and can't hold it back when the tears start coming.  Broke my heart to see him sad to come home.  Once we got here, though, he was happy to be back in his routine and seemed to get back in the swing of things just fine.

Our sugar high has officially worn off in the past two hours, so both kids crashed hard tonight.  Will be more to come this week!

Not exactly what I had in mind.

On Thursday afternoon, I got to spend some one on one time with Lauren.  As you might guess this treat centered around her 18 month doctor's appointment.  We had fun, though (all except for the shots).  We even squeezed in a trip for some groceries together and I loved watching her say hello and wave to every single person we passed.

 

Then we got home.  I was expecting a quiet night to get a few things done.  After all, I had some special plans over the weekend and I needed to get a jump on the laundry and a few other little jobs that I didn't want looming over my fun.  And that's when I realized I was NOT in control.

Joshua was sick.  His nose was running like a spigot.  He threw up.  He was burning hot.  He cried and cried and cried in my arms until he fell asleep.  At 4:00.  We were in for it.  The night was bad, and he needed to stay home from school.  I stayed with him because the fever was a little scary for me at least and I somehow felt better knowing that I was at least looking at him and feeling his head every 15 minutes.

It became apparent that my Saturday plans weren't looking good.  Mom, Libby and I had planned a shopping day about 2 months ago to go to the outlets at Hershey to have some girl time (without kids) together and do some spring/summer shopping for the kids' wardrobes.  Although Jason was perfectly willing to deal with the illness related duties on Saturday, I didn't think it was fair to leave him with a weepy miserable Joshua and a ticking time bomb Lauren, because we all know it's only a matter of time before your healthy children pick up whatever the sick one has.  I find it incredible that these children can't share a toy to save their lives, but as soon as one of them has a germ, they're all of a sudden blessed with generosity for one another.  It's like a sick joke.  No pun intended.

All plans of getting out of the house on Saturday failed miserably.  The only bright spot in the afternoon was that Lauren (after refusing her nap, God help me) and I got to go to the grocery store.  The high point of the day was a half hour spell outside that ended in tears on the part of both children.  Remember....weepy and sharing of the germs.  I knew Lauren was doomed.  Then Jason cooked a delicious steak dinner on the grill that, looking back on it, was truly the highlight of the weekend.  (It really tasted good!)

I was hopeful that we could make it to church.  That is until I felt Lauren's head upon her waking in the morning.  She was the next victim.  And so we stayed in our PJ's and cuddled on the couch for hours and tried to make the best of it.  Joshua was coming out of the fog, so at least there was only one crying at a time.

I was looking forward to work on Monday morning.  I had an opportunity to go to a big conference in Harrisburg with United Way to talk about Early Childhood Education and business investment into it.  The Governor was supposed to speak, as was the CEO of Sesame Street.  I was really looking forward to it.  And then the phone rang and we learned of the bug's third victim......Grandma.  And all plans to go to Harrisburg or even to the office today were shot right to you-know-where.  Jason's work day was more important than mine and so I decided to stay home again today.  This house arrest is starting to work on  my nerves, I have to tell you.

So, suffice it to say that the last few days haven't worked out anything like I had hoped.  Nope, this isn't at all what I had in mind.

Despite Lauren feeling SUPER crummy today and crying more than not, here was our only photo opp today.  Poor baby is sick.  I'm only thrilled that my #1 baby is much much better today.