Easter was long-awaited this year for me. The added stress the last few months of worrying about our upcoming move, homeschool, and (most of all) of trying to sell the house, made February and March crawl past at a glacial pace- before climate change.
Even the weather acted like spring was never really going to arrive. We had a warm stretch in February; my daffodils all sprang up; then winter slammed back down. We rarely got above the 40s for weeks. Finally last mid-week it started to warm up. The first warmish day we exploded out of the house like we had been held captive for years.
The yard looks like I've been hibernating for five months. Which I have. Thank Heaven for daffs.
They perk up anything. And this year, of course when we are trying to sell our house, the lawn is taking forever to green up. I'm sure it's the latest it has been since we've lived here.
Anyway, Easter this year was special, because it fell on conference weekend. Such an amazing conference! Elder, or I should say, President Nelson has such an energy. He made so many huge announcements. A temple here in Richmond! I had hoped for Williamsburg, it would have been such an opportunity to do a cool colonial, red brick temple. But I know it makes much more sense to have it where the two big interstates intersect. And temples in India (!!?!?!) and RUSSIA? I think that Heavenly Father is getting the world ready for the Lord's second coming, whether the world wants to or not.
For conference we built a big puzzle, which is what my Mom and I always did while we listened to conference. It really does help me listen and pay attention more. Miss M was dedicated to the puzzle, and she really listened to all the talks. Miss A had her nest on the blue couch, and she listened and dozed, but I think she got a lot of it. Miss R made a tent under the table (moved to the living room for the occasion) and it was torture for her to not be out playing. Here is the finished puzzle. A thousand piecer.
I did the hunt right after the last conference session. The girls wanted a full on treasure hunt, a different map for each girl. I told them sorry, I'm not Grandma, you're stuck with just me. Miss A sighed a big sigh and said "yeah." I thought it was funny. I am way past feeling badly for not doing elaborate everything. So I came up with six places, and made a clue for each one, then hid a small thing from their baskets at each location. Here are their baskets before the hunt.
They each got a movie (we're trying to replace all our old vhs disney movies with dvds before the move so we don't have to take our vcr), two shcleich animals, a peg doll, big girls got earrings, and Miss R got a stuffed pony purse thing, and they each got one of those soft little stuffed animal marshmallow things, even though The Daddy has banned more stuffed animals from entering the house. Sorry!
Here are the clues:
1. Tall, dark, and handsome with a beautiful voice.
(They had a hard time with this one. I had to tell them that it wasn't a person, or even alive. Finally Miss EK, a neighbor, thought of the piano.)
2. Sad, but true, we have to move. Like this, we're feeling blue.
(To the for sale sign, which we painted blue.)
3. With these names, you would think you were in a flower shop!
(To the back yard neighbor chickens, whose names are Lily, Petunia, Buttercup, Thistle, Chrysanthemum, and Rose.)
4. Still as a statue.
(To a cement bunny statue in my shade garden.)
5. Five "Cawk-y" girls.
(To the across the street neighbor chickens.)
6. Mother of a god, our home away from home.
(To our mini van, whose name is Frigga. Frigga, of course, is the mother of Thor. Miss M named our car Frigga Grey Fox when we got her.)
And that is where their baskets were. Then in to enjoy one piece of the candy. I had intentions of only letting them have a little bit each day, so they could enjoy it longer and not become sugar crazed lunatics, but I caved today (the day after Easter), and so most of the candy is gone.
Here are the peg dolls I painted them. I tried to do their likenesses.
And then I thought I better take pictures of their eggs too, just in case the container with our stuff sinks on the way to Japan or something. The eggs laying down were painted in 2015 by their Aunt Mt, the plaid eggs in 2016 by Grandma, and the other eggs by me last year.
I meant for them to get an egg every Easter, but I exhausted my egg painting ideas last year, so had to resort to pegs. Although I did do a cool thing, and put petals on the big flower on their eggs to match their age that year. But next year I'll have to find a new relative or friend to paint their eggs...
