Our Easter Weekend

We had a lovely Easter. The kids in public school had Thursday, Friday and Monday off of school, and so our homeschooled kids took a break on those same days. On Friday we took the kids out lunch and then went and did a little shopping. We bought each of the kids a new t-shirt and then Beth and Sahara used some of their own money and gift cards to buy a few things.

We enjoyed watching General Conference all weekend long. This year we had all of the kids sit and watch it. The younger ones became restless at times, but overall it went well and I am glad we had them be part of Conference. It was also nice to be snuggled up as a family on our couches, chairs and the floor, altogether. Kenyon remarked several times that Conference seemed shorter than usual. It was great to hear that he is maturing and better able to enjoy Conference.

On Easter Sunday, we had a big breakfast and watched more Conference. (The Easter Bunny brought the kids a big basket with 3 movies--Ponyo, Where the Wild Things Are & Princess and the Frog--and some candy. I am not big on the Easter Bunny and never really talk about it to the kids or make a big deal out of it. However, I also don't want them to feel left out or weird when kids at church/school are talking about what they received from the Easter Bunny, and our kids didn't get a thing. So, we "do" Easter Bunny, but never make much out of it. I look forward to the day when our kids are all old enough to understand and we can stop doing it altogether. It seems so different to me than Santa Claus. The Easter Bunny is purely commercial in my opinion.) This year we opted to stay home for Easter dinner. We usually split the holidays between Tim's family and my family. For awhile now, we have wanted to start doing some holidays with just our own family and it worked out nicely this Easter. The kids have been begging to have a feast for a long time and so we had one. To them a feast is having a big meal where all of the food is on the table. We usually serve up food from the stove and then go sit down at the table. We are not fancy people in any way. Even with our feasts (as you can see from the photos below). Some day it would be fun to really go all out and have fancy place settings, decorations, a table cloth, etc. I will do it sometime this year. When I feel less tired. ;-)

We had ham, twice baked potatoes, green bean casserole, corn, homemade butterhorn rolls and peach cobbler. The kids helped me plan the menu. It was delicious and we had so much fun eating and visiting with each other. I sure do love my children and husband. I am a very blessed woman.

On Monday Sahara and I went for a run. We went about 3.4 miles. Sahara had twisted her knee at the beginning of the run and by 3 miles was in quite a bit of pain. I had her stop just before 3.5 miles and we had Tim come pick us up (we were going to run 10 miles, so were heading out of town and I didn't want Sahara walking back home on her knee). I came home and walked a couple of miles on the treadmill with my new shoes, hoping to break them in a little. I can really tell that my "old" shoes are almost dead. I have put almost 400 miles on them and it is obvious when I am running. I don't want to wear new shoes on my half-marathon next week, so I will use my old ones until then and be ready to start using my new ones after the race. Anyway, later on that day I took the girls and Ezra shopping. All of our kids are in need of nice Sunday clothes, so each girl got a new dress (Beth & Sahara each got a new skirt) and the boys got a new church shirt and two ties (Ezra actually got a little vest/pant/shirt/tie outfit). I also bought Tim a couple of ties. We went to the mall to accomplish the shopping. I forgot how much I hate the mall. As we were walking past that one store with women's lingerie, Ezra immediately looked down at the ground and kept walking by it without looking. What a well-trained boy! ;-) Later on we were sitting on a bench, waiting for the big girls, when Ezra noticed we were by another store with completely immodest women plastered all over it. He tried covering his eyes, then looking down, and then pulling his jacket hood down over his eyes. Finally, in exasperation, he exclaimed, "Don't they know that little boys are trying to relax on this bench and don't want to look at that stuff!?" I just wanted to squeeze him to bits, I felt so proud. Anyway, we had him move, so he was facing a different direction.

Anyhow, we had a nice Easter break. What a treat it was to celebrate Christ's atonement and resurrection listening to our prophet and other church leaders' counsel, and spending time as a family.

(Claire just asked me, "Mama, are my adult teeth going to be like bunny teeth?" Her teeth are coming in and she must be concerned about how they will look, because this morning she had said, "Well, my new tooth is coming in and luckily it is coming in the right way." Funny girl!)























Kenyon received his K12 supplies on Friday afternoon and we had fun putting his stuff together in the school room. It was a little like Christmas getting to open up the boxes and see all of his school books.