Easter Week and Mr. James' Birthday (I know, what an original title)

Here I sit, feeling rotten.
Time to post.
Haha...whenever I get sick and have to banish myself to a couch whereupon to watch my children play, fight, and beg for my attention I always end up here. On the blog. Trying to catch up. It's my way of still doing something when I don't feel like I can do anything. Everyone has been sick this week, all of us taking turns at a strange, feverish, coughing something or other. James has had it the worst...considering I haven't been paying as much dictator-like attention to his diet as of late, I can certainly understand why. Darn it all, I always hate the fact that I can figure out a way that all illnesses are my fault. I guess that is part of my heritage as a woman.
Anyway, I think perhaps I paid some of my dues when, a few nights ago, he was having a horrible night and I had JC set up his camping cot in The Boys' Room so I could spend the night convincing James that there are, indeed, no bugs waiting to eat him in his sleep. (He has such vivid nightmares made horribly worse by fever.) JC said that he wanted to take a picture of me sleeping in there, wedged in between the two boys' beds but since I was really hot I had stripped down to only my underwear and was only minimally covered by my blanket. He didn't take a picture because my "bum was out" he said.
That really made me laugh.
Anyway, back to what I was saying...Sick. Couch. Blog.
AKA Kids watching Jungle Book then Up then The Secret of Nimh. (old school...Speaking of old school, JC picked up Harry and the Henderson's for mere dollars the other day. Awesome.)

So, when I first started organizing pictures for this particular week and events, it all felt very excessive but I wanted to cover all the bases of things we did/celebrated. So I figured I would spend some time at some point splitting things up, perhaps purging some pictures, etc.
But now that I'm ready to work on this, remember...Sick.
So, I just loaded everything right into one post and I'm going to jump right into narrating this thing. It is going to be long.
But good.

Here goes...

The week before Easter, we went ahead and took a family picture dressed in a spring-ish fashion.
Well, most of us dressed spring-ish.
You see, my birthday boots had come a couple days before and...I couldn't not wear them.
So, everyone but me matches. Oh well. :)

As we moved into the week before Easter, I decided to give it my best shot, spending the week talking with and teaching the kids about the holiday. Easter is my favorite holiday, even more so the more I grow and learn about who I am, who we all are and the wonderful plan our Heavenly Father has in place for us. What we celebrate at Easter is as essential to our everyday lives as celebrating life itself. We are here, experiencing our lives because of our choice to take part in an eternal plan of happiness, progressing toward all that our Father in Heaven is and has. But we would have no way to fulfill that plan except for Jesus and his choice to take the role of our Savior. Easter is our opportunity to focus solely on that! Stretching it out through the whole week before the holiday really helped me, and the kids, see that there is so much room for us to focus more on Christ, his gospel, and our purpose here in this life in our daily lives.
Every day of Easter week, we talked about the things Christ had done on that day, relative to his death and resurrection, plus other important parts of his ministry.
Keep in mind that when I say "talked about" I mostly mean I blurted out choppy stories in between breaking up fights, wiping noses, and changing diapers. They might have heard me some of the time. I don't want to romanticize what it was, but it was special.
Bethany really got interested and excited about our discussions. She is just so bright and really very spiritual in nature.
We also colored pictures that i had printed out that correlated with the specific topics for that day.

Bethany's picture of Christ riding into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday:
(note her note at the bottom...'I love you Jesus." So sweet.)

On Monday, we went for a nature walk at the green belt by our house and gathered things that would represent parts of the stories we would be talking about the rest of the week...branches (palm fronds), rocks (tomb), sticks/wood (cross), etc.
The kids wanted to hang up their pictures of Palm Sunday, so we started a line across the mantle. Then, we were having our family home evening, talking about it and they did their own little re-enactment, waving their branches of the picture of Jesus riding into Jerusalem.
It was quite amusing/touching/cute.

Then, Daddy got home and he got the whole excited rundown of our day.

(This was back when he was working from like, 7am to 8pm nearly every day so we had started FHE without him.)While Bethany was at school on Wednesday, the boys and I ran to Trader Joe's to buy some fresh(er) fish for dinner that night. I was planning to make some on Sunday and wanted a trial run! James got a balloon. Ben, for some reason, didn't want one. He was more interested in the samples. Dark chocolate rocky road squares...I don't blame him.

Once home, playing in the backyard, the balloon took flight and lodged in our tree. I tell this little story because...

...his solution for getting it out amused me greatly. He dragged some bricks he found in the yard underneath the tree and stacked them up to stand on and reach his balloon.
I, of course, did not let him actually follow through with his plan but rather boosted him up.
But what an innovative little boy. :)

The rest of the week went really well, we did different activities on different days and I spent a lot of time thinking about those things of greater importance than what usually tends to occupy thoughts during the normal daily grind.
I feel so blessed to know everything that we know.
As the weekend came, we enjoyed something else special - general conference! This was the first time we have been able to actually watch since being married! The kids are old enough to enjoy playing together independent of our minute-by-minute involvement and undivided attention for periods of time! So, though we still only caught pieces, we were able to actually sit down and watch, listen, and take it all in here and there. It was wonderful.
My favorite talk here.
("And Upon the Handmaids in Those Days Will I Pour Out My Spirit" by Julie B. Beck)
After the morning session on Saturday we went outside to play with a new toy JC had scored at Walmart the night before...something we had been searching for ever since we had played with one belonging to my brother. It's like Duck Hunt come to life. So fun.

JC instructed Bethany and how to aim and get the duck as it sporadically flew around.

And off she went! She was pretty good at it! (Surprise, right?)

More instruction.

More attempts.

JC and I both took turns and the boys got their shot at it, though Ben was mostly scared of it and James didn't have a lot of interest because he couldn't master it right away. Hmm...who does he get that from? (I will tell you, in case you don't know. It's me. Definitely me.)

That night, after conference was said and done, we colored eggs.


I meant to do this a couple of weeks before, as I would love to have this be a tradition for the first day (or Saturday) of Spring since the whole egg hunt/bunny/candy-devouring part is more spring-related than Easter-related. But, time got away from me and I am slowly but surely getting a handle on all this holiday-celebrating stuff. So, we ended up doing it all on Easter weekend. Which, turned out being a lot of fun but also supporting my desire to do it all at a different time. Because, I tell you what, as soon as all this stuff came into play, the actual celebration of Easter became non-existent! I definitely want to be able to enjoy both parts of the celebration so next year I will most definitely make the egg hunt and such happen at an earlier time so we can spend Easter on...well...Easter! So, anyway, here's all this fun festive stuff!

Ben, getting ready to dye the eggs! He doesn't know what's going on but he is EXCITED!

Now he knows what's going on, with an egg or two in transition, and he is still EXCITED!

James was meticulous. It reminded me of when we made Valentines. Everything he does is thought-out and carefully executed.
Artist.

Ben usually just threw his egg into the dye.
Not a care in the world.
He is not afraid to just DO something without a big, analyzed plan. He is a lot like JC in that way.

Bethany enjoyed coloring on hers with a crayon so there would be designs. She loves to really get into everything we do and always has ideas for fun activities. We can't always do a lot of art projects, etc. because of prep time, daily dynamics, etc. so when we do something like this, she is thrilled.

Once we were done with that, we put the beautiful eggs back into the carton and into the fridge for the Bunny to find. The kids were concerned that he wouldn't know the difference between those eggs and our other ones so I drew a quick (sad looking) bunny on the carton.
I think next year I will find a more fun way to save them for the morning!
(Any suggestions?)

Random pictures of my Easter Lilies.
My visiting teacher brought them. Lilies are one of my very favorite flowers, if not my favorite.
They were the majority of my bouquet when JC and I got married and they are just so pretty.

That night, for our family movie night, I used my new air popcorn popper for the first time! I got it for my birthday and it is one of my very favorite, if not favorite, kitchen appliances. :)

Yum.
I melted butter and honey together, then tossed the popcorn in it, ground a little bit of sea salt over it and REALLY YUM.

Sunday morning, the kids woke up and we all ran upstairs to see if that ol' Bunny had, indeed, come and hidden all the eggs.
Here the kids are, with their still-sleep-puffed eyes, checking the fridge. GONE!

So we headed out back.

The search began.
(Bethany found her four almost right away!)

(I like this picture of the boys looking for eggs. There is one right behind them tucked into those sand bags. See it? It's orange.)

Ben got the hang of things pretty quickly!

James too!

There was one last one that nobody could find! Not even me!
(Take a look in the little crevice in that leg of the swingset. Blue egg tucked in.)

Once all the eggs were found, it was back upstairs...

...for the fun stuff. (The Easter Bunny had every intention of minimal baskets this year but when he stopped by Trader Joe's they had an amazing selection of goods.)

And smoothies!

And, of course, hard boiled eggs.

Then it was the morning session of conference during which the kids colored on some conference packets from primary. Bethany was a pro at the traditional conference bingo. :)

When they got restless, in an effort to salvage our viewing, JC busted out some new sand toys we found for super cheap at Walmart for them to employ in the newly finished sandbox!
The ability that time has brought to open the back door and listen to them play/fight/whatever, while working on or doing something else is novel and life-changing.

Woohoo!

Later in the afternoon, we decided to give James his birthday present a day early.
Yay for James turning four!!! JC was going to be working from sun-up to sun-down the next day so we wanted to be sure to get most of the celebrating done before-hand.
Here, he races down the stairs as he catches a glimpse of...

THIS!
Our neighbor, Michael, has a big-kid scooter and James has always been envious.
So, we got him a little-kid one.

And he was excited.

He tried it out and did a great job!

Um...then he found some sunglasses that we had bought Ben at the zoo quite a while ago.
Dazzling.

Later, we headed over to Grandma Trudie's to say an Easter hello...but mostly to pick up James' birthday cake. :)
Hello, anybody there? (You will notice that James is toting a gift bag. This was what his present from Grandma Teri came from earlier in the day and he carried it around for about a week after.

With Monica-the-Miracle-Worker in the background, James takes his first look at his Spiderman Cake.

A grateful and pleased look goes to Monica. (from all of us!)

Check it out. How lucky is this four-year-old boy?

Later, for dinner, though the festivities of egg hunts and birthday celebrating had taken up much of the day, we reverted back to Easter mode and enjoyed a dinner I had planned just for that night. We had broiled fish and (rather than actual honey comb) raw honey on pita bread, figs and...mashed potatoes (modern addition...because we like them. Also because JC made them from scratch from some delicious red potatoes. They were amazing.)
The whole point was to have it be similar to what Christ ate when he sat with his disciples after his resurrection.
It was all very good.

James was too excited about birthday cake and kind of played through dinner.

Then it was time to enjoy birthday cake as one should.

Oooh.

Blow out the candles and....

time to eat!

The anticipation of the first cut...

and the joy of being first served!

No holding back.

The whole family got to enjoy a very delicious cake!
I tell ya, I am already a little concerned about how Ben's birthday will go at the end of this summer as it does not fall while Monica is here on her break from school. She will be way up in Idaho. And Ben will be expecting some form of glorious Toy Story cake.
This will be interesting...I better start googling now...

As we rounded out our Easter Week, here is what our mantle looked like:
pictures from every day!

It was a great week...it was so rewarding to spend so much time talking about Christ's life, His ministry while on Earth, and the joy of His resurrection. There was a very peaceful feeling around the house that week that, since, I have desired to create again. I think I learned a lot about integrating gospel study and focus into our days. I have been realizing a lot this year how basic life really can be, when focused on what we are truly here to experience. When our minds continually rest on the purpose of our time here on earth, it's amazing what things melt away and how much room there is for the real necessities of life. The key, and challenge, is keeping that frame of mind in a world that discounts it all as mere religion...almost a side note to our lives, one area of personal belief. When, in all actuality, it is more a recognition of the truth...we are here for a specific purpose and anything that distracts us from thinking about, participating in, and studying that purpose is less important.
Seriously.
Think about it.
I do. A lot lately.

Another fantastic part of that week was celebrating sweet James and watching him be so excited about his birthday. He is such a blessing to us. His ability to show affection and joy is something that lights up our home. His streak of stubbornness and even sometimes perfectionism drives him to be a hard worker...already I can see that. But his love of fun brings balance and I think it is a large, exciting life ahead of this four-year-old!

It was all a great start to our April!