Easter Weekend 2020

We had a relatively low-key Easter weekend-- that's probably not a shock to anyone. :)   Aaron was off on Good Friday, so he and my dad teamed up to take the boys fishing.  They took Michael in the morning, leaving around 6:00am.  They caught four fish while they were out.  Noah and I did some school work and had a nice morning at the house with Avery.  The guys arrived home around noon so my dad could head over to the church building for a little while.  Having the boys come home at lunch allowed us all to spend time together in the early afternoon.  My dad came back around 3:30 to pick up Noah and Aaron for the evening fish.  They ended up catching 11 fish.  Michael and Avery and I had a relaxing afternoon and evening together.  Michael picked dinner for us-- we had leftover frozen pizza and I made blue-box mac-and-cheese and we ate on the deck.  Michael and Avery played outside for a while and then we ended our night by watching "Onward."  This is a super cute movie that we've probably watched a solid twenty times in the last week.  It gives us a break from Frozen 2, so I'm all in.  The guys arrived home around 7:30pm and it was nice for both fishing trips to have gone well and to have fish caught during both excursions.

On Saturday, we took it pretty easy in the morning.  Aaron and I cleaned out our office last weekend, so this weekend we tackled lots of laundry and clearing out Avery's room. For a while, I kept adding furniture pieces to her room and eventually it became a place where there was hardly any walking space.  We might have had two to three square feet to walk around.  Last weekend Aaron removed the pack-and-play and we just leapt into having her sleep in her "big girl bed."  She actually has done awesome and for some of the nights has actually slept past her normal wake-up time-- probably because she's more comfortable in the big bed.  Removing the pack-and-play gave us more room, but it was still crowded.  I moved out a smaller piece of furniture this weekend and relocated it to the living room.  I tend to stick more with the minimalist approach in my main living areas of the house, but sometimes this makes it look like we're moving since there's so much empty space.  So I knew adding a small piece of furniture to the living room wouldn't be terrible.  I also rearranged some of the pieces in Avery's room so it didn't look like things were totally crammed in there.  Avery's bed doesn't have a headboard or foot board and we had kind of been using two bed rails as a side rail and as a foot board when the bed was on it's frame.  However, in the fall we let my mom borrow the bed frame, and she said she'd hang onto it for us until we asked for it back, so we've just had the box spring and mattress on the floor.  This means that the bed isn't very raised off the ground, so we didn't really need to have a bed rail at the foot of the bed.  We moved that bed rail to the head of the bed because there's an outlet right at one of the pillows and I have a lamp and a diffuser plugged into that outlet and didn't want little two-year-old fingers to find it and play with it.  So we transferred the bed rail to the head of the bed to act as a head-board.  We kept the side-rail in place to act like the side of the crib and pack-and-play-- since she's used to having some barrier at her side.  The room looks so much bigger with just moving the spare piece of furniture and the bed rails!

After this project, we rewarded ourselves with drive-through lunches (Cook-Out for us and McDonald's for the kids-- their choice).  We  planned to attempt naps after lunch, but Avery took hers while we were in the car, so it kind of defeated the purpose of the rest of us getting to rest.  We hung around the house the rest of the day and played outside for a bit.  We were told to expect bad weather on Easter, so we started preparing for bad weather by closing up the sand-box and making sure items on the deck were secure.

I bought little Easter treats for the kids several weeks ago at Target and hid them in the garage until Saturday night.  I ordered one extra gift for each of them from Amazon, and I really didn't intend for those gifts to come by Easter but they did, so I hid those in the garage too. I don't really have Easter baskets for them, so I just separated out the treats on the couch.  Michael got a Pokemon plush toy, Noah got a battery-operated garbage truck that makes noise and has lights, and Avery got some new outfits for her baby doll.  All three kids got bubbles, a kite, sunglasses, and a chalk roller with stencils.  Overall, it was very simple but very sweet.

On Easter morning, I woke up and attended our "drive up" Sonrise Service. Aaron & the kids were awake before I left but we figured it would be torture for Avery to see the slide from inside the van and not be able to get out and play on it so Aaron stayed home with them.  Our service was well attended- 8 cars.  

Afterwards, I came home to a breakfast of "Sister Schubert's sausage rolls" and coffee. We watched our church sermon on Facebook Live at 10:00. I made a lunch of tomato soup & grilled cheese, then we all took naps. 

I made homemade brownies in the afternoon and Aaron pressure cooked a whole chicken for dinner. He marinated it in teriyaki sauce and we paired it with rice and peas and carrots. We watched Onward a couple more times. All three kids and Aaron & myself really like it! Later, we read a fantastic Easter book for children called "The Garden, The Curtain & The Cross." It explains the Easter story SO well and the pictures are beautiful. 

This Easter sure looks different from the past. We prepared more for severe weather  for overnight, so I had the hall bathroom stocked with our helmets, shoes, diabetes supplies, and leather belts to strap the kids to the toilet if necessary (since it's bolted to the floor). We will try to conduct an Easter egg hunt in our own backyard one afternoon this week in between school work at home. I will also attempt to take nice photos of the kids outside. Avery was given some pretty Easter dresses as hand-me-downs, so I'd like to photograph her in them. 

We're taking it one day at a time and that's really all anyone can do. 

Until Next Time, 

Much Love, Reba

Easter Weekend

I had Good Friday off for the first time since completing my undergrad degree in 2009.  It was a fantastic day off with the kids.  Aaron's company gives that day off too, so that made it super sweet.  We had some storms roll through the night before, but nothing that made us get up in the middle of the night.  That morning, we did some brief shopping for what we planned to make for Sunday morning breakfast at church.  That afternoon, I went with my mom to our local pop-up consignment shop because it was a 50% off day. We ended that day by going to my parents' house for dinner.


On Saturday, Aaron went to help set up inflatables for our church's combined Easter egg hunt with another nearby church.  Afterwards, we got ready to go to our friend's birthday party for her three year old little girl. The kids LOVE going to her house because she has a lot of land and her husband will bring in a truck-load of dirt/sand and dump it in the front yard for the kids to play in. All three of mine were covered in dirt from head to toe!  A real testament to a good time!



We went home and got them cleaned up (read: dumped about a pound of sand out of their shoes).  Aaron headed over to his mom's house while Avery napped.  Once Avery was up, I loaded up all three kids and headed there as well.  Aaron's brother and his family were in town so we went over to Aaron's mom's house for a family dinner and Easter egg hunt.  My parents and Aaron's dad and stepmom all joined us.  The kiddos (all 7) had a blast blowing bubbles and searching for eggs (or chocolate bunnies for the older ones).  Aaron had to swing by the store on the way home because we realized we bought nothing for Easter meals the next day.

On Sunday, I went to Sonrise Service at church and Aaron brought all three kids in time for the church-wide breakfast. Afterwards, Aaron spent the day fishing with my dad and brother and I hung out at home with my little ones and ended up making the entire Easter dinner by myself since fishing took longer than anyone was expecting (and it was my mom's weekend to work). That evening, we had my parents and younger brother over for dinner and then tried out the massive bubble maker outside!  Overall, it was a super fun weekend with the right balance of busy and rest!

Until Next Time,
Much love, Reba

Easter Basket Ideas

Easter is my favorite holiday.  We always have a ham dinner around Easter-- either at one set of parents' homes or our own. This year, we're not hosting Easter dinner but we do plan to bake our own ham simply for the benefit of having leftovers!

Only within the past two years have I actually put together an assortment of gifts for my kids on Easter morning. I had one Easter basket while growing up--a church member had given one to my brothers and me.  I remember mine had a purple Pocahontas coloring book and I thought it was the greatest thing.  Aaron got Easter baskets every year.  We decided to start doing an "Easter bundle" for our kids a couple of years ago.  Of course, they love every excuse to get presents, so they're all for it!  We do not tell them that the goodies came from the Easter bunny.  We don't really spark belief in the Easter bunny here, because we want our kids to trust in the true story of Easter.  We don't bring up the Easter bunny a whole lot, though, because we don't necessarily want our kids spoiling that belief for other kids who choose to believe in it, or whose parents tell them that's where their baskets come from. We don't even do "baskets" on Easter morning.  I just pile up the goodies on the couch into individualized sections for each kids, then a combined goodies section in the middle.

This year, so far, I have a "make your own comic book" for Michael. He is very much into drawing comics and writing little stories, so I know he will LOVE this!  I chose a version that did not already include thought bubbles because, well, that's just kind of awkward. The book arrived on Saturday and I'm super pumped! It'll be hard to refrain from giving him this gift early!

I also bought these bubble wands that are supposed to make humongous bubbles.  I'm hoping they live up to the hype!  I also got some "just add water" bubble solution for them. I'm anxious to see how well that works. The bubbles are for the enjoyment of all three kids (plus Aaron and myself!).

Noah loves all things garbage trucks and police, but already has so many toys in those categories. I thought about getting him a Play-doh garbage truck due to his latest bout of playing with Play-doh, but instead I'm going to get him a few new Play-doh colors to replace ones that have dried and I ordered him these police car & badge cookie cutters and construction vehicle cookie cutters (one is a dump truck and we can pretend it's a garbage truck).  He can use the cookie cutters to make shapes in the Play-doh.

I'll probably get Avery some pretend food for make-believe play. Easter would be the perfect time to stock up on bows, but she doesn't keep them in her hair, so that would be a waste of money over here. She has recently begun playing with the tiny toy kitchen that the boys got for Christmas a few years ago.  In fact, she learned how to open doors and would sneak into their room to play with it so I moved it into her own room.  It might be fun for her to have some pretend food for her to play with.

I'm not planning to have any candy in their Easter bundle-- mainly because they didn't finish their candy from Valentine's Day and they don't need candy.  Instead, I'm hoping that they will find things to do that will make them engage in imaginative play and limit screen time.

Lately, Michael and Noah have opted to play together rather than watch shows (or play video games in Michael's case). They get along so much better when the TV is off and when they're using their imaginations. Sure they still squabble, but it's few and far between now. Their Easter bundle will give them ample opportunities to play on their own and together, without screens.

Until Next Time,
Much love, Reba