Easter 2017

We had a wonderful Easter time this year, remembering our Savior's love and the miracle of new birth and new life that He gives us!

On the Sunday before Easter (aka Palm Sunday), we had a special Last Supper dinner and rice krispie sculpting contest. We normally do the last supper dinner on Thursday before Easter, but I had to work. We had the Ekins family and the missionaries over to enjoy the meal with us! We ate on low tables and sat on pillows like in ancient Jerusalem. I served lamb with meditarranian spices and beans, cooked in the slow cooker. I also did a pot of beef with the same seasonings. We ate bitter herb, haroset, and unleavened bread and re-read all the symbolism behind the foods. The kids really liked eating on the low tables and pretty much all of the kids liked the food, especially the meat! I actually didn't have any meat left over!

The rice krispy sculpting was super fun. There isn't any symbolism to this activity, per say. It's just a fun Easter thing that we started back in OC with our friends Lucy and Chris. Everyone gets some warm rice krispy stuff right out of the pot, and we each sculpt our best Easter scultpure. 

All the kids finished their sculptures pretty quickly, except for the oldest kid in our family and the oldest kid in the Ekins family. They both spent a lot of time on their sculptures.

And then Tanner was the last one still working maticulously at his creation.

Random pictures of the boys in church.

 

One day, we got out the eggs to decorate. (I had to make several batches of hard boiled eggs before we could do this- because all of them would get eaten before we had a chance to decorate them!) 

Decorating eggs started out great. The boys liked stirring the die droplets into the cups. But things took a downhill turn quickly. Tanner thought his egg was going to be blue, but the die was actually purple. Dallin thought his egg was going to be red, but it of course turned out pink. So they were pretty bummed and mad. Tanner cried and punched the couch. He yelled about Easter being too girly because it has pink and purple! It was pretty hilarious for me, but also disappointing. So much for trying to do something fun with my kids! 

On Good Friday, we drove to the local bakery called Super Fresh to get our special Hot Cross Buns. The boys were really excited about the frosting in the shape of the cross. We couldn't wait until getting home to eat them, so we sat in the car, sang the song "Hot Cross Buns," and then we all bit into the buns at the same time. Yum! While we ate, we talked about Jesus being crucified and how his disciples were so sad, thinking they would never see Jesus again.

On Saturday, I took the boys to a community egg hunt. I didn't really know what to expect, so I was not able to prepare the boys very well. It was the kind of hunt that consists of eggs all over a big lawn, not hidden anywhere. A man welcomed us and said to please be careful of others and not to be greedy. Then he yelled GO! and all the kids started scrambling (pun intended) around the eggs.

Tanner was very overwhelmed and clung to me and whined. Dallin started to grab eggs and have fun, but he saw Tanner's reaction and hesitated a bit. So I walked on the grass with them even though most of the adults stayed back and watched their kids. Dallin picked up a few more eggs and was excited for a few minutes. Tanner got the courage to grab a few, but couldn't stop stressing about everyone else getting eggs before him, and he kept asking why didn't they hide the eggs?

The entire "hunt" was over in about 3.5 minutes.

Dallin got about 10 eggs, but was sad it was over.

Tanner got 4 eggs and could barely hold back the tears until we got to the car. He could have gotten more if he wasn't so busy trying to process the whole experience. In the car, he let out all his frustration and disappointment. 

"There were too many kids! Everyone was going too fast! They didn't even hide the eggs! Why would they do that!? It was over too fast!" Oh the struggles of SPD! Although I was bummed that he didn't have fun and couldn't just figure out how to enjoy the moment, I was able to commiserate. I shared in his frustration. Why do people bother to have egg hunts where they just lay the eggs in the grass?! Our family decided that this kind of egg hunt is pretty lame!

We went home to see what treats we got in the eggs. Dallin opened up his eggs after I told him its okay (he wanted Tanner to be happy) and he was excited. Tanner waited a long time to see inside his eggs. Dallin tried to encourage him and share his own eggs with Tanner. Finally he opened them and was glad about the things inside. I appreciated that some of the eggs had little toys instead of candy.

We hung out in the library until Daddy came home.

Then we went out to dinner on Easter Eve at Perkins (and used a gift card)!

Dallin is hanging in there, but you can see in this picture he is getting sick.

EASTER MORNING!!

On Easter morning Dallin had a fever, so he couldn't come to church. Jeremy stayed home with him. We sure were bummed that they couldn't join us, but we still had a great time at church. Tanner wore this new suit from GramZ.

The primary children sang two beautiful songs during sacrament meeting (I had the privilege of teaching and leading them in the music). They sang All Thing Bright and Beautiful and Jesus Has Risen. Tanner was hesitant to get up there and sing, but he got enough courage to go. He smiled and sang!

During primary time, the other leaders and I made things special for the children. (Did I ever mention that I'm now the primary president? I was asked to volunteer as the president of our children's ministry at the end of January. It's a big job, but also super fun and rewarding). Karem taught the kids a lesson using the Resurrection Eggs and scriptures. Then we all made a cute craft of the tomb and the angel telling that Jesus is risen. Then Carol made some stellar easter treats for the kids. Each child got a half dozen egg holder, and inside were carrots, strawberries, mini muffin, pretzels, etc sitting inside the open plastic eggs. The kids loved it.  

When we came home, everyone had to look through the house to find their Easter eggs that Jeremy and I hid (the kids know that the Easter bunny is pretend). The boys had bubbles, chalk, and other goodies from the dollar store in their baskets. Jeremy and I had some dark chocolate. I succesfully kept candy to a minimum this Easter, and that was nice (especially because the only good Easter candy is Starburst jelly beans, pastel M&M's and dark chocolate. All the other stuff is just gross to me.) Then the boys opened up some Easter presents from their grandparents. 

Our day was so peaceful and relaxing--just how I wanted it to be! We ate Salmon with honey for dinner to remember how Christ ate fish and honeycomb. Jeremy wanted to compare the difference between frozen salmon and salmon from the special meat counter. The salmon from the meat counter won in both appearance and flavor. The boys loved the salmon and begged for more!

This Easter season, I thought a lot about the Resurrection, especially because this was a time of sickness for our family. Sickness sucks. Fevers of 103 that last for days upon days sucks! Not having energy and having your back give out while trying to do lots of good things simply sucks. But I'm glad that I have the opportunity to experience pain and suffering because now I will appreciate the gift of being resurrected much more than if I didn't have any physical ailments. The promises of being resurrected give me hope and help keep me going. And how awesome it is to know that not only will we obtain a body again after we die, we will gain a perfect, immortal body, even one that can be celestial in glory! It's going to be so exciting when we will all rise again and be able to kneel at Christ's feet in the flesh!! This is why I love Easter! (Job 19:26. Alma 42:23. 1 Cor 15:40-42. 1 Cor 15:54)

Bizzy Weekends

  These pictures are from March 23-April 8, and mostly consist of three very busy weekends all in a row. But first a couple of random shots.

Above-Tanner and Dallin had a lot of fun with some stamps I brought home from work one day. Below- Dallin is so independent! When he wants a snack, he usually gets it himself, which I love (most of the time). Here, he made himself his own PB&J sandwich. I was really proud and grateful for him doing it all by himself.

On Saturday March 25, I helped plan a music event for kids at the Hormel Historic Home. A special flute quartet performed for us, and I created movement and learning activities that related to their music. Here is Dallin playing his "flute" during one of our activities.

After the performance, the children got to meet the flute players and their instruments. Tanner liked moving the keys of Erin's flute. There was also a music scavenger hunt throughout the historic home, where I hid instruments in different parts of the house. The event was very succesful (over 45 people came!). Best of all is that my kids loved it, which made me happy because they are the main reason I got into planning the whole thing in the first place.

Jeremy helped Tanner with some of his clothing issues. We realized Tanner has a ton of pants, but he only wears a few of them because of different tactile preferences that he has. (The joys of SPD). 

Then, Jeremy took Tanner to the store to get a few more clothes that he'll actually wear. Tanner was pretty excited to come home with more comfortable clothing. He was especially stoked about this ninja turtle hat that he bought with his own money!

Jeremy did some type of product sampling at work. He's been super busy on a bunch of projects with Hormel Natural Choice Lunchmeat.

I got really sick with 103 fever for 4 days, and then was just super weak for several more days. I thought I was well enough to lead some music activities at an event at the library on Sat April 1, but my body decided to April fool me about getting healthy. I came home early from the event, and crashed. I didn't get up for the next 7 days, except to pee and take a couple of showers. I looked like this the entire time. 

It was hard taking care of myself (Jeremy helped a lot, but still). I was really diligent with using lots of oils, drinking tons and tons of water, and avoiding fever reducers so that my body could fight off the bug. I think it paid off because most everyone else in town said that after their fevers hit, they got terrible stomach and digestion issues. Luckily, I didn't. But even then, I was SO weak. It was really hard to just lay in bed doing nothing, but I simply had no energy whatsoever. (And I had rehearsals with Seussical that I missed, and the Spamkids Fest was in less than a week, so it was hard to not freak out about stuff, but I did a really good job just sleeping and not stressing!) Our house became a disaster, but I didn't care until after I was feeling better. Those first few days, I'm not even sure what my kids did. Somehow they got to school and back, I think Jeremy took them. I was a literal zombie!

All three of my boys went to the CIRUCS in St. Paul with Riley and Kristen. It was a neat experience for the boys. Thanks to Riley for getting them in for free!! Then, they went out to deep dish pizza. I was really jealous.

Playing outside while I was sick.

I got a glimpse of Tanner's ninja turtle game one day.

While I was sick, Tanner made some Easter Bunny ears and whiskers for me to wear on Easter, haha.

An outing with Jeremy? 

As soon as I felt better, Dallin got hit with the fever. He went through the same thing I had! Poor kid. So even though I was finally well enough to go to work, I stayed home.

We managed to make it to the Spamkids Fest at the Hormel Historic Home, and good thing since I was a co-planner of the event. We were able to go during the special needs hour, which was really helpful for Tanner. A lot less commotion.

We enjoyed hambowling, where we knocked down spam cans.

And a plinko game where we won a prize.

Sir Can-a-lot

Bubble room.

Water bead trough

Cookie Monster and Spam Scientist presentation. Once again, Jeremy was the puppeteer for cookie monster, and did a super job! His cookie monster voice is spot on!

Here's us watching cookie monster.

Spam Musubi making station.

Craft room.

We came across a little piggie.

Some short plays were featured, too! One was Stone Soup, where they put Spam in the soup. And the other play was one that I wrote, all about Lilian Hormel. It was really neat to see the story come to life from my own words on paper to a little production on the pallet stage. It took a lot of rehearsals and team work with these great actors to make it happen. Someday, I want to try self publishing the story on amazon. The best part was that my boys loved both plays!

It was really fun to see my kids enjoy the fest. My boys really, genuinely LOVE Spam. They could have stayed at the fest another 2 hours, but both Jeremy and I were volunteering at the fest, so we had them go home with a babysitter. I spent the rest of the day taking groups of kids through the home with our new Shaping History tour. I wore a fun lab coat and shape hat.

The event was very succesful, but I found myself really tuckered out by all the work leading up to the event. This next year, I am going to put my volunteer efforts toward some other family events at the Hormel home that won't be so taxing of my time and energy. 

A special thank you to the SPAM Brand team at Hormel Foods for sponsoring the event. A big hug and thank you to ALL the volunteers who helped run the event, many of whom were my personal friends. And a big thank you to our team of volunteer moms and the director at the Hormel Historic Home for the many months of time, creativity, skill, and energy that it took to plan and host this awesome day for our children!!