Easter!!!

The past weekend was busy, crazy, fun and inspiring. My sister, Sara was in town, so we did all the Easter celebrating as well as a little extra!

A few of the highlights...

Friday afternoon was an Easter egg hunt for the kids at my mom's house. The picture is of Sadie and her cousin Tyler all ready to go search for eggs to fill their baskets. Everyone had a great time and I think we even found most of the eggs! Then the kids did some little relay games. I'll post pictures of that as soon as I get them.

Friday night we had a (nontraditional) special passover dinner, consisting of fish sticks, grape juice, olives and pita bread. The kids especially loved eating dinner by candlelight and had a million questions about the last supper, passover and candles.

Later that night Nick and I went to see the Improvables at Rogers' Memorial Theater. My brother, Scott, is one of the participants and it was so much fun! We all laughed until our sides hurt and have decided we will be attempting Improv games for FHE sometime soon.

On Saturday, the Easter Bunny dropped by our house and left gifts for the kids. This was Nathan's suggestion and I'm really glad, because it went so well and we will definitely do this again next year. The kids each got a hat, instead of basket, filled with flip-flops, puzzles, little toys and (of course) candy.

Also on Saturday, my wacky family did a Murder Mystery Lunch. We each dressed up as a character, revealed secret clues and accused each other of being the guilty party. My character had a French accent, which is really hard to maintain when everyone else was British, but it was a riot. Having so many dramatic siblings makes this one activity we have loved doing over and over again. I'll probably put up pictures of this too, as soon as I get them.

Sunday, of course, was Easter. I had finally finished the dress I've been making for Sadie on Saturday night and she was thrilled to wear it to church. (Once again, pictures will be posted later.) Nick sang with the choir in church and it was an inspiring meeting. The speakers and musical numbers were all thoughtful and testimony-building.

Once again, we had a big lunch at my family's and played more games. We had a great round of "Eat poo you cat", which has nothing to do with cats or excrement, but always gets us giggling. To play, each person has a stack of papers in front of them equal to the number of players. We each write an interesting sentence (usually about a family member or recent event) on the top piece of paper and label it with our initial and the number one. We then pass the paper to our left and the next person takes a new piece of paper and labels it with our initial and the number two. They then draw a picture of whatever your sentence was. Their picture is then passed to the third person, who, not having seen the original sentence, writes a sentence about what they see in the picture. This is repeated until each person has done a picture or sentence about each player's original sentence. Then we read them all aloud and show everyone the pictures.

I probably haven't explained it very well, and some games are more hilarious than others, but it is one our family keeps loving over and over again. We also call it 'the paper game'.

My sister had to return to Oregon after that and our weekend finally slowed down a little. I had just enough time to get semi-prepared for the week!

I have decided to help out a friend and will be babysitting three days a week. In the mornings there will only be one little girl, which keeps Sadie entertained while the boys and I do home-school. Then at lunch time the preschooler and kindergartner come home, followed by the oldest boy at 3:30. My kids have absolutely loved it! Guaranteed playtime with their best friends, and it makes sure I get up on time and don't waste my day.

Overall, life is still busy, but going well. We've only had a few nibbles on the condo so far, nobody really interested in buying. Hopefully that will change, but we'll be happy to stay here if it doesn't.

Congratulations! You have finally reached the end of this crazy-long post! Next time I'll definitely add more pictures and less words. :)