Easter 2011

We started out the Easter weekend with a *BANG*. Jimmy went camping with the 11-year-old scouts on Friday night. I had a goober night with kids waking up all over the place. Max still had his cough and it turned into a whopper of an ear infection, which meant a trip with all the tots on Saturday morning to the doctor. Thank you Pink Amoxicillin… you saved us from the wailing 3-year-old. I was still coughing up a lung and I gave all I had… plus a little more (must have been reserves from the angels), but we hung on until Jimmy came home. Hurray – he saved the day. Then Tru started coughing up a lung… like all day Sunday non-stop. So Mom and Tru stayed home from church. Tru looks happy in the photo on the couch, but he was lounging and watching Baby Einstein. He actually sat still for like 20 minutes – amazing! Abe enjoyed his new tie (which was miles too long, but we tucked it in). Hannah especially made an effort to look bright and sunny for Easter.

So Easter was different. I wasn’t into the Easter Bunny this year but I wrote a poem about the real meaning of Easter to leave on the table for the tots with some candy. Later on, we had an Easter Egg hunt and shared some gifts with the kids. For FHE, Jimmy helped Max with a lesson he got from Sunbeams about the Resurrection. The kids seemed to enjoy the day and hopefully caught the real meaning of the holiday.

The funniest part of the day was when Max and Hannah gathered a bunch of dandelions for me. They put them in a tiny cup on the table for a centerpiece for dinner (it replaced her favorite fancy centerpiece which is a bunch of colorful spatulas in a vase). Abe saw the dandelions near the end of the meal and exclaimed, “Smell these flowers. They smell soooo good.” He passed them around so all could smell them. I love the delight in children. Hannah was disappointed today to find out the flowers had died. Dandelions sure are a lovely color, but long-lasting blooms, they are not.

He lives, my one sure rock of faith,
The one bright hope of men on earth,
The beacon to a better way,
The light beyond the veil of death.

Gordon B. Hinckley