Year 3, March 29th-31st, 2018: Holy Week

Ho, hum, the week is done! We had great homeschooling days on Thursday and Friday!  Towards the end on Friday though, Justin and Keturah were acting like they had spring fever, so I had to send them outside for a while.  I barely got a chapter of our read aloud read because Justin kept interrupting and being loud.  At one point, Abishai came in with a plastic hoe in his hand and whomped on Justin causing Justin to tears in pain.  He yelled, I yelled, and we both sent Abishai until tears.  I think Abishai thought he was going to be punished, and I would have if Justin and I hadn't started laughing at him.  Justin was simultaneously crying and laughing.  I finally did get Abishai to apologize but it had taken a bit to calm him down first.  We had worked on independent work in the morning.  Abishai had a bath while I went over the work.  Then we had to drop paperwork off at the health clinic (based on income, we get 50% the original price for a regular appointment, woot! Woot! and it was painless paperwork).  We came home, did our read alouds, then went back out for groceries.  Dinner, littles went with Grandpa to get Grandma from the airport, and the bigs with Bryce and Jared will go see Ready Player One for the late showing.  I'll have about 1 hr to myself before the littles come home.  Which leaves me to put littles to bed, which, if it's anything like last night when Jared was at church with Benaiah for worship practice, Abishai won't go to bed for me and he'll end up falling asleep in my bed.  Yes, it had been probably over a month ago that I had successfully gotten Abishai to sleep without Jared's help.  Jared does the final tucking in and everything.  Momma is spoiled!  But phew, it's been a long Friday!

We haven't done too much Holy Week/Easter talk this week, but that's probably because we talk about it often all year long.  I thought about shutting off all electronics and lights, and walking around in candlelight for an hour or so to represent the darkness over the land when Jesus was on the cross.  But the timing didn't work out for Friday and Saturday is super busy.  We plan on going to an Easter egg hunt, Benaiah goes to church at noon for worship practice, then a friend is doing pictures with her animals, so the rest of us will go to that.  Then church at 3pm, volunteer at the 4:30pm service, then finally home for dinner.  Sunday morning Jared, Abishai and I will stay home, while Benaiah serves in worship, Justin serves in Kidustrial Park, and Keturah will want to attend her normal class.  We'll have Easter Sunday dinner, probably with extra guests, with Gary and Leah, then back to church Gary, Leah, Jared, and Benaiah goes to serve again.  And that's how it goes in a pastor's family on Easter.  Gary actually isn't preaching this weekend because they are continuing to transition the pulpit over to Dan.  Gary will be there and do the "hosting" i.e. announcements, communion, and any other greetings/transitions, but it will be weird not to have him do the actual preaching.  I'm thinking it's probably his first Easter Sunday in over 30 years that he hasn't had to preach.  He probably is welcoming that break.  It will just be different for the rest of us.  I think he did get his Easter message in last week though because it was a powerful one.  And then we're back to Easter Monday, which Benaiah and Jared have off from Southside, but the rest of us have to work so I can go do a Lilla Rose event the rest of the week.  Busy, busy!  I'll try to sneak in a few Eastery things here and there like dying eggs and making Jell-O eggs.  Oh and resurrection rolls, so stay tuned for that.

Jared needed to put a new air filter into his truck so the younger kids decided they wanted to help!  What a good Daddy to let them!

Keturah watched and held Daddy's phone, which has a flashlight feature.

The daffodils survived the snow and like to open up in the evening.

How many different bowl for different foods does one preschooler need? The struggle is real, as they say!

"I don't wanna go to bed, Mom, I'm readin' "  Every night, the same books.  He tells us the stories now.

"I'm not sleepy!" he says as his eyes start to close.  He refused to stay in his own bed.

Well, that was pretty easy, except now Jared has to move him to his own bed when Jared gets home from rehearsal.  Little baby hand on my shoulder though.

Sometimes you multi task: giving little guy a bath while correcting big guy homework.

Gorgeous daffodils opening up just in time for Easter!

The boys went to see Ready Player one, which the time under the "standard format" and not the time under the Tyler Perry movie, ick!

Aldi's is awesome!  They now have ghee, which is butter with it's milk proteins removed, so no lactose and other stuff.  I still can't handle it though because I'm super sensitive to dairy.  But I'm always happy to see Aldi's following market trends and making sure they cater to those on special diets!  I'll always be a big fan of Aldi's!

Saturday! 3 more services on Sunday!  Dan preached today, which mean it was Gary's first Easter off in 30 years!  Great message!  Gary did "host" though.

The worship and creative arts team outdid themselves! They added several elements using lights, including some new permanent lights like you see in concerts.  Now, they won't be used as much as they were this weekend, but what a cool addition.  The choir sang as well.  I'm glad they took it up a notch.  We were sitting under the balcony and the sound felt muted, but that's because of the design of the room.

Both services on Saturday were full! They only used the main floor, but it was excellent to see so many take the staff's advice and leave room for guests on Sunday.  Wahoo!

They replaced the normal communion decor with these very pretty stick crosses, and since we were all there looking decent, I thought we'd take a quick pic.  Not perfect, but it usable!  They had just shut off the spotlight before we took the photo, so that's why it's so dark.

Grandpa and Grandpa Jr. chasing each other through the sanctuary.  Abishai was wired all day because of the activity (see below) and extra people at church.

Twinning.  Ethan didn't go to reChurch but I think he got the bag from his dad, who did.  BFFFs for life.

Abishai spotted Grandma's car and Grandma drove over to meet up with him.  Then he and Keturah rode back to our house in Grandma's car, while Benaiah and Ethan rode home to our house in Grandpa's car, leaving just Justin with us in our van.  It's a good thing we live so close!  Bryce stayed over last night and Ethan is staying over tonight.  Revolving door in our house!

Grandma car! Can I have a ride?

And Grandma took them through the old middle school's parking lot to see all the machinery.  They are tearing up and repaving the parking lot.

Yesterday, Abishai and Socks were trying to wake up Benaiah as always.  They snuggled him, too, and Abishai got right in his face, nose to nose.  Best alarm clock ever.

Oh so sweet a picture!  Abishai touched the daffodil and said, "I don't get my finger wet/dirty!" And he didn't.  He was very gentle.  I wish we all had the wonder of a child seeing things for the first time.

Stop and smell the flowers!

Waiting on Bryce to arrive I think.

Hanging out with Bryce on the pull out couch, that yes, we had just put away on Monday.  It will stay out for Ethan, too.  Sweet friends.

But vicious defender of something.  That gun is massive!

"Up head!"

We went to an Easter egg hunt at a nearby small church.  It looked to be mostly church members, but that's ok. They shared the resurrection story and the kids do a craft before they went outside.

Daddy and Mommy helped with Abishai's craft.  It was tomb with Jesus on a popsicle stick so he could slide in and out of it.  It was made with foam that had adhesive on the back.  It's pretty cute!

Time for hunting eggs!  Most weren't hidden that well, but the kids had a 30 egg limit. 

The hunt was only for 5th graders and under, so Benaiah, Justin, and Bryce climbed the playgrounds or hang around.

Abishai did not want to pick up many eggs.  He would rather slide and play on the playground, but we convinced him to pick up a couple.

He loves sliding.

There you go, now you understand.

Bored teenager.

A little basketball in their gym.  This is the same church that a local Classical Conversations group meets at.

I didn't know Jared knew how to raise and lower a basketball hoop like this with a long wrench type tool  Neat!

Pwease, Mom???  Yes, ok, just one!  And then he ended up sneaking a whole lot more at home.

After the Easter egg hunt, we went home for lunch and sent Benaiah with Grandpa to church.  The rest of us rested, and then we left early for church so we could stop by Julie's barn where she had a photo booth set up by a friend.  Here's her brand new, but imperfect barn.  It look great, but up close, the builder did a terrible job.  Despite being many, many feet above the flood plane, it doesn't sit perfectly on the dirt, and the roof wasn't put on right, so it leaks and they had a flood in the barn!  Crazy!  But there it is, ready to be fixed and the completed inside with stalls and tack rooms.

Abishai wasn't the least bit scared this time.  He LOVED the animals.  I'm going to wait until the barn is finished and Julie is feeling better until we attempt to go more regularly.  She doesn't mind us coming, but I know she has health issues and kids to keep track of.  Yeah for mini horses!

Petting the animals.  Fun times!

And she purchased baby chicks and ducks this week!  Yeah!

Beautiful bunny!  This is Julie's daughter in law, and she said that the bunny is very calm and just sits there all day.  She is going to be an excellent addition to Julie's barnyard parties!

Bryce loves horses, too!

Now that's almost a professional photo, ladies and gentleman, if you lighten it up a little.  The photographer will send me the pictures via email after he gets them loaded up, so you'll have to wait to see them.  I was just going to have Keturah and Abishai do it, like I had Justin and Keturah do it years ago, but Justin joined in for fun.  Benaiah was already at church with Grandpa.

Oh the poor pasture I rode in.  Lots of deep ruts from dump trucks bringing in the dirt and there's pooling water in another area.  Someday it will be all put together again, someday.  Thanks for the fun, Julie!

Happy Resurrection Weekend!!!!