Year 3, April 1st-3rd, 2018: Easter 2018 and Beyond

Easter 2018 was a success!  Ok, it's not about us being successful, but we were able to get all the festivities done in two days! Which made Monday a quiet day, except when Grandpa asks if we want to go to the movies.  But that's still pretty restful, don't you say?  So restful in fact, that I almost fell asleep.  Great movie, "Black Panther," but I was just really tired.  Good thing Tuesday is a rest day before all the back and forth craziness for this vendor event I'm doing.  I woke up in a brain fog this morning (Monday) and still don't feel quite up to par.  Perhaps it's the Easter candy, or the fact that it turned very cold again and we had some snow last night!  My body doesn't react well with the transitions between seasons.  And allergy season is upon us, too....but I digress.

Sunday went as planned with church for some, Easter Sunday dinner just the 8 of us, Easter baskets, and more church.  And we colored eggs.  Oh, and some of us watched a movie, and little guy had his nap.  But he was still so tired today, that he fell asleep in the corner of the living room at 6pm this evening.  Go figure.  We know you can be exhausting, kid.  We are doing a little bit of school work this week, but thankfully I had planned it that way when Grandpa called above the movie.  Justin stayed home with Grandma and Abishai because he wanted to play Minecraft.  There are more details of these things below with the pictures.  (Brain foggy Momma can't come up with a narrative, sorry.)

Tuesday went perfectly as well.  Ok, there were skirmishes and some lost some privileges, but I've been cracking down on the infractions, so that is expected.  We had just a little bit of school to do because it was really our "Friday" before our 3 day break.  That left time for me to make all the phone calls I needed to do and prepare for the rest of the week!  I made a nice meal AND prepped veggies for stew in the crockpot on Wednesday.  Everything is picked up and clean.  Bags are packed and plans are in place.  We are good to go! I even put a menu on the fridge!  I pulled out new books to read to Abishai since it was a very stormy day and I wanted him to see that rain is ok.  He had woken up at 2:30 am when we had some really big cracks of lightning and thunder.  So, he came into our bed and stayed until Jared put him back in his bed around 6 I think.  Keturah and Justin said they woke up at different times, too, so we were all a bit grumpy to start.  Oh, the roads were already flooded when Jared and Benaiah left for school, so it took a lot longer to get there.  The big highway, I 65 was closed at Southport, one of our major intersections on the southside of Indianapolis, which caused backups on the back streets.  A bus had to pull another bus out of a ditch or rain induced temporary pond on the road.  Almost 3 inches fell in 12 hrs.  That's like 3 ft of snow, give or take.  The Facebook groups were all a buzz today about it.  The rain did stop by early afternoon, giving us a nice reprieve, but another line of storms are coming through now.  The rest of the week is clear, thank goodness!  I'm glad I didn't have to go out there today though.  Onward.

Just a little Easter candy basket fun.

Haha, I thought the tractor bucket was mine so I half ate the creme egg that belonged to my brother!

Justin got the top of a game box that looks like a brain because a) I ran out of cute buckets and b) it suits him because brain is still rewiring.

Creme egg, Reese's eggs, and Starburst jelly beans.

Making resurrection rolls!  Some make hot cross buns, because of the cross in the middle.  We make resurrection rolls that I learned how to make back in my MOPS days.  Roll out pre packaged croissant rolls, but don't separate the triangles, leave two together to make a square.  Then brush with melted butter and cinnamon.  Add a marshmallow in the middle and wrap it up.  You have to be careful to seal the sides well.  Otherwise, the marshmallow just oozes out.  The marshmallow melts and is absorbed by the croissant roll, leaving the middle empty like the empty tomb.  It's hard to have a helper that just wants to eat the "mar-mellows."

Brushing the butter in.

All wrapped up.

Whoops, it didn't seal that well but I'm sure it was yummy.

It's empty inside!

Gorgeous, but cold Sunday!  The calm before the storms.

Grandma hid some eggs and gifts.  Justin's was sticking out from the birdhouse, but then Abishai pushed it in and Benaiah had to rescue it!

They found most of the eggs, but Grandma found a couple over the next few days.  Each sparkly one had our name in it that we were supposed to turn in to receive our gift from Austria.  It didn't work out that well since one of them was missing.  We all got something consumable.  Yeah!

Sunday dinner.

Highly caffeinated drink from Grandpa to Benaiah.

I found an egg!  Now what?!

Abishai got the most candy!  Keturah got king sized bars of Hershey's chocolate with Almonds and Hershey's cookies and cream bar.  Justin got lego and Benaiah got,.....I don't remember.

Empty tomb!

Beautiful!  Jared installed a lock on the pantry door to prevent little one from making a mess before I get up.  And it helps tremendously during the day, although he'll pull on the door and I'm sure eventually he'll work it loose.

Big boy didn't get his basket until the evening because he was at church most of the day.

"I hate coloring eggs, so let's get this over with." - said the preteen and the teen agreed.

Writing messages on eggs before dying them.

The activity didn't last more than 15 minutes and that's enough.  Not everyone likes hard boiled eggs so they each only had 3 eggs to color.

Waiting for the dye to do it's magic, which, it did very quickly this time!

Family.

Favorite color!

Another favorite color!

Pure joy!

All done!  And our egg dying kit came with extra suggestions to use the box for tic tac toe and awards for the best eggs.

The dye worked really quickly and well this year!

Thanks, Instagram.

Yup.

We went to Grandma's house in the truck!  What a fun ride!

Abishai likes to ride in the truck because he can stand up and look around.

Hi, Sissy!

On the way home, now with Justin,who had gone to church and was brought back by Grandma.

Decent weather.

Back home in Manchester, NH, MCC gathered all her people from her many campuses into an arena of a local college so they could worship together at one Easter service.  They have done this for years now.  I LOVE it and someday, I'm going to be there!  Who knew that the little church of 200 or so when my family started attending would now be this big!  Wow!  And Indian Creek had record numbers, too, I believe, because wow, the services were full!

Momma was there, too!

Sunday night, it snowed another inch!

CS Go for Benaiah's video game.

A "mistake" but it looks neat!

KE for Keturah.

Another Benaiah egg: tired.

RRRR for Justin's attitude.

Monday, movie theater, Black Panther!  Jared, Keturah, and I.

And Grandpa and Benaiah.  This was so funny: Benaiah was trying to solve his cube so that it would fit in the cup holder (it was the one with different sized rectangles, not just squares), and the previews were starting and he was still at it!  Click clack click clack....he finished it just in time before the second preview.  6 previews in all.  Some were ok, and some were horrible (zombies and horror).  Movie was very good.  I loved that 95% of the actors were black.  Several mentions about slavery in America and Europe.  A few twists and turns I didn't know about.  I do get tired of fight scenes, so I almost feel asleep a couple of times.  Late nights and busy days do that to a Momma.

Came home and found this guy all tuckered out.  He had hit his head on the chair and then asked for paci and blankie.  So he crawled over to a safer spot out of the way and fell asleep!  At 5:45 PM and slept until we woke him up a little bit after 7.  He was still really sleepy and went to bed around 9.  Poor little guy.

So cute!

Meanwhile, while Grandma was babysitting, she heard Abishai get out some pots and pans.  She asked him what he was doing and he said, "I make dinner/breakfast."  And he got one of my pieces of GF bread from the bag on the counter and cut it up for all four kids.  "I help in kitchen."  Ok, sure!  He said a lot more about it, but I can't remember it.  He's just very smart and observes everything so well and then mimics them, too.

Still asleep even after his paci was removed and he was moved from the floor to the couch.

A little bit more of the snow we had that morning. Very heavy and wet again.

Gorgeous!

Poor puppy was out there long enough to drool and then have his drool freeze like a popsicle!  I think he was out for 30 minutes?  He does often come up on the porch to wait for us to notice he wants in.  He doesn't bark to go out or come in.  You just have to be aware of when he goes out and when he should come in.

Looking at his own baby pictures on Daddy's screen because he was sleepy and cuddly.

One of our favorites!

24 hrs after that snow picture and we have 3 inches of rain fall!  What a gigantic mess!  I'm so glad the house sits on the crest of a hill.  The shed is about a foot or so off the ground and looked ok from the sunroom window.  The sump pump was on and off most of the day.

Poor dog!

Um, it's a road we do travel occasionally!  We really don't see this very often here but have more often in the last couple of years because the infrastructure in Franklin Township needs desperate upgrading.  Yuck!

I'm not sure if it did or not, but the storm was supposed to stretch all the way from NH to Indiana and down to Louisiana at around 5 pm!  That means both sides of our family were experiencing it together!  Crazy!

Oh so much flooding back there!

A quiet moment where they got along playing with their Legos.  The reason we do do a lot of school is because it keeps them busy.  With only 2 hrs a day allowed on the screen, they tend to get bored.  At least they found something to do together today.  And then they played Minecraft together on the PS4 and teased each other until yelling incurred and there were tears.  #siblings

Abishai and I had a picnic snack on the kitchen floor and watched a couple of Mommy's favorite vloggers' most recent videos.  There's kids in them, so he likes to see those parts.

Then he helped with dinner!  He put the cut potatoes into the bowl and then put the parsley sprinkles on!

Sad day.  We finally ran out of the bay leaves we bought like 4-5 years ago at No Frills in Canada.  Boo!  Still potent though!

This is the intersection near one of our big hospitals on the southisde, the one that Jared took Justin to, and the one where the 3 oldest were born.  Wow!  The guy was ok though.

Abishai got to tell Benaiah's teammates "Go get 'em!"

Another day, another organization project, another room arrangement.  She scooted her bed over all by herself.

Abishai's favorite book is the Richard Scary Cars and Trucks book that has been around for over 30 years.  I did bring out a Sesame Street book that is like that, labeling everything in the picture and telling a short story.  We also read a book about a little guy breaking his leg at soccer, taking a ride in the ambulance to the hospital, and getting fixed up ta the hospital.  I figured it was good thing to talk about given Justin's recent encounter with his arm.  Abishai prefers to read with Daddy though.

Speaking of, Justin has gained a little bit of movement in his arm, but he's afraid to stretch it out at the elbow joint.  We have to force it a bit and it hurts.  Please pray that he works with it more.  If he doesn't regain more movement at the joint, I might call the doctor and see what else we can do.  It's still almost 5 weeks away before we are scheduled to see her again.  We are a little bit concerned.  Thanks.