Easter

I love Easter. Christmas is my favorite because the season lasts longer and people are happier usually for a little while, and come on, it's a baby (I'm just in that season of life right now). But I know that if there were no Easter there would be no Christmas. The end of His mortality created the celebration of the beginning of it.

We try to separate the secular bunny rabbit and egg stuff from the power and beauty of Easter. The bunny is quite accomodating, visiting our house on Saturday so we can concentrate on more meaningful things Sunday. This year he came right in the house while we were all down in the play room. We decided to all come upstairs and Emily was first. She made the announcement that the Easter Bunny had come and Rachel froze on the stairs. She would not walk through the kitchen to the livingroom because she did not want to see him. Emily quickly explained that he was already gone and we proceeded with the baskets. After a few minutes they looked out the back windows and realized that there were eggs all over the back yard. Shoes have never been donned so fast in house before! We had a fun family egg hunt then turned our minds to the real Easter. Unfortunately, Mommy did not get to attend church Sunday though due a reaction to all the meds the doc gave me for a double ear infection and sinus infection on Saturday. I was up all night with strange compression sensations throughout my body. But, the children were beautiful in their new duds and we all celebrated the life-giving Atonement and Sacrifice of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, just not in the pew together.

Since we had purchased a new DSLR camera but it had not yet arrived, we decided to use grandma's old SLR to practice up. I will post pictures if I ever remember to take the roll of film to get a CD made.

Spring Break

Well, potty training was not completed during spring break. It was wishful thinking anyway. But, we did get our day trip in. We went to Atlanta to the zoo and had our first in person IKEA encounter. There will be future encounters. Eli had no wetting accidents the entire 36-hours. Within an hour of returning home he wet his pants. Go figure!






Zoo Atlanta was great! A much happier zoo experience than the Birmingham Zoo. I still think the Montgomery Zoo is the best zoo in all the adjacent states. And way cheap too (especially if you have reciprocal zoo membership)~Well worth the trip. Anyway, you get to see lots of gorillas in Atlanta which is cool because the bachelors will fight a little and its entertaining. There are polar bears and panda bears. The pandas are coming up on their 10 year loan term from China. I would think that the offspring born here get to stay (you know that makes then American citizens) but I am not sure. The babies sure are cute! The mir cats and warthogs are right next to each other so it's a pretty neat Lion King moment. The reptile house is huge and right outside it is the naked mole rat exhibit. If you have never seen them up close, they are way nasty looking creatures! You need to see these critters in person before you die. Just to say you have. And there is a naked mole rat playground for the kiddies too. The Children's Zoo playground is much fun too. A tip for all you moms: they allow outside food unlike B'ham and have scads of tables and benches for snack stops. This is a great day trip!

We spent the night however and spent the next morning at IKEA. It was an amazing wonderland of organization, furnishing and storage ideas with affordable prices. If you have never been there and you like any of the above you should go. There is childcare that my kids loved, a restaurant with surprising variety, a separate bakery/cafe and the whole store is like a triple Home Depot on 2 floors. Allow lots of time. There is a path marked on the floor for you to follow, if that tells you anything. This side trip was a mommy bonus and I loved it! Obviously!

Emily's kindergarten teacher came out to have lunch with us earlier in the week. She was so sweet to come out here and she made all my kids so happy with her visit. Eli was so excited he gave her a new name while trying to say her real name. Emily chose the menu: turkey and baby spinach wraps, strawberries & grapes, carrots & celery with ranch, chips and homemade ice cream sandwiches~I will post the recipe later (you will never want to buy those mass-produced things again, though you probably will since these take a little time~but again, worth it!). What a healthy girl! Even the van got it's annual bath. The kids needed an extra bath that day! Yes, the van was filthy enough to dirty up the washers. I'm not proud, just honest.

All in all we had a pretty great spring break. Not as relaxing for me as they used to be when I was the one in school, but very good. Still, when the day came to head back to school we were ready. Too much togetherness,though there should be no such thing, can happen in a split second (7 people {grandma you know},1 house, 24/7 you do the math). At least it did not happen until the latter part of the week for us. Now we are looking forward to summer with 3 parts anticipation and 1 part trepidation. At least I won't be a grumpy pregnant lady this year!