Saturday, April 18, 2020

Easter and April Snow Showers

Easter Sunday the kids were up by 7am, super anxious to find their Easter baskets. The Bunny of course left notes with clues.

Steven's basket clue was: "They cause you a lot of work but can be your best friend. I hid your basket near them." He found his basket by his guinea pigs. Inside his basket was a Fitness Tracker watch (to help with his physical goal), a temple recommend holder/lanyard, a mother/son journal, stickers, mini Jenga, play dough, bubbles, minecraft minifigure, bubbles and a chocolate bunny.


Penny's basket clue was: "I heard you can wipe your own bum. I put your basket by the place where this is done." She found her basket in the downstairs bathroom. Inside her basket was a game to learn sight words called Zingo (to help her with her intellectual goal to read), a smoothie cup (to help with her physical goal to make healthy smoothies), a gratitude journal, a puzzle, water colors, blank canvas, stickers, bubbles, a Shopkins, play dough, Lip Smacker and a chocolate bunny.


Lucy's basket clue was: "Look for you basket where you learn, to make sure it does not burn." Her basket was under their "homeschooling" table by the fireplace. Inside her basket: a Yoga mat (aka towel) and Yoga book (to help with her physical goal), a Dogman book, a gratitude journal, a blank canvas, a Shopkin, bubbles, play dough, a puzzle, stickers, Lip Smacker and a chocolate bunny.


Ben's basket clue was: "Thanks for celebrating my brother. He likes attention and can be such a bother. If it's a basket you seek, it's near something you made for him last week." His clue was by our mini Chungus Christmas Tree which we still have up. Inside his basket was: a Fitness Tracker Watch (to help with his Physical goal), a gratitude journal, stickers, bubbles, play dough, toy Ninjas, a blank canvas, bath slime, Minecraft minifigure and a chocolate bunny.



Dad is a lucky duck and his basket was set up on the kitchen table, no searching needed. He got a Dwight "False" shirt, a water gun and some candy.


Mom's basket was also on the table. She refused pictures due to messy hair and glasses but she got watercolor paper and new watercolor brush pens.

After Easter baskets were discovered and played with, it was time for the traditional Easter Bunny pancake breakfast. Tyler always tells the kids to bite off the heads first so they can't scream. He's so funny.



Even though we can't go to church because of the Coronavirus, I still made the kids get dressed up for Easter Sunday because it's tradition. Our church did do an Easter devotional via Zoom which was nice. It had 2 special musical numbers and a Bishopric member spoke. He is an ER doctor and he spoke about the different reactions to death and I could feel the spirit testify that I will see my Isaac again. After the devotional we did our own family church meeting- sacrament, a lesson by Lucy using eggs with objects to tell the Easter story and then we listened to the song "I Know that my Redeemer Lives" and talked about why we are grateful that He lives.





That afternoon we did a bike ride WITH TYLER! That never happens! It was nice to have him along so he could stay up with the speedy ones and I could stay back with my pokey puppy, Penny. We brought some sidewalk chalk along and colored the sidewalks near the library. People may not have appreciated us being the walking/biking path but we always moved out of the way and it was fun. I wish we had sidewalks in our neighborhood or even just a driveway we could color on would be nice.

This week the weather was cold and snowy so there were no fun nature walks or bike rides which I think is partly why there was more tension and fighting in the house. We also started school again this week. Steven really struggles and gets mad when I try to go over assignments he has due or even try to help him. Ben had a lot of emotional moments when he didn't understand things. Lucy was pretty whiny over certain assignments- basically anything that wasn't just a learning computer game. It is definitely not looking like I will ever choose to homeschool. The only highlight was that Penny's teacher sent more assignments this week so I wasn't trying to scrape together things for her to do.

I had quite a few Zoom meetings this week. 2 for YW- one to teach them indexing and one for our weekly activity. 1 to get my temple recommend renewed (interview with Bishopric member).1 with the Sister missionaries here in Michigan- they taught the kids about following Christ. And 1 with a few friends. It was my friend Chalsea's birthday so we did a virtual puzzle birthday party. We each had our own puzzles out and chatted while we worked on them. I didn't contribute much to the chat. My friend who moved to Utah, Bethany, was part of the chat and she is always really good at talking. I realized too that socializing again is going to be hard. Talk of babies seems inevitable when women are conversing. When a friend was talking about making baby blankets because so many people she knows are having baby's, it was hard not to feel sad. I want to be one of those people.

Speaking of...I was doing really good emotionally and then a friend sent me a Christmas ornament that said "My little Angel" and that was really nice but it also made me really sad because it really hit that I wasn't going to have a baby for the holidays. I got real low and a part of me wished I could just forget because I don't want this ache of all that I am missing out with Isaac here on Earth. I am extremely grateful for the eternal perspective that I will see him again but that just feels so far away.

Anyways some positives from this week: Starting a free trial of Disney Plus and enjoying some family movie nights. Experimenting with my new watercolors and adding them to my handlettering. Getting to the store early and finally finding toilet paper! Reese Peanut Butter Eggs! Warmer weather today, Saturday, meant a bike ride with the boys. Finding out that even with the 20% pay cut, we will have enough money each month (mostly because student loan payments have been suspended). And a grocery store date with Tyler ;)







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