It's been a busy week - which you probably guessed from my lack of blog posts. On top of everything else I already do I decided it was a great idea to become a bicycle mechanic this week. But that's getting ahead in the story. Lets start with Monday.
We had a much better Easter Themed Family Home Evening than
last year - as in I thought about it more than 20 minutes in advance and actually had decent pictures of Jesus this time. Then we arranged flowers for our activity. The girls had a lot of fun with that.
We made an Easter Tree. One day I want to do a thing where we hang plastic eggs with scriptures about Jesus inside of them on the tree and then open one each day. But that was filed under "not this year." Still, our tree was very pretty.
I had an Easter get together planned at my house for Friday. I plan these things so I have motivation to clean my house extra well. Here are Charlotte and Lydia helping clean the mirror in my bathroom. (They actually played with play dough the whole time I cleaned their bathroom and most of mine and only realized I was cleaning at the very end.)
Lydia has been asking for a bike since at least last August. She was confused about her birthday being on Halloween so she kept saying she wanted a bike for "my Halloween." (She also wanted to be a princess for "my birthday." Well we found her a bike through a free stuff facebook group, but we never found one for Charlotte.
A few months ago I found a lady who was selling two bikes for $7 each so I hurried and bought those. And then a little bit later I found a little bike for $14 at Goodwill. So I decided that the bikes would be a good Easter present from Brandon and me.
In an ideal world Brandon would be the one to fix up the bikes. He used to work for a company that put together bikes for Smiths Marketplace. He worked there the first three years of our marriage. He also spent a semester at USU's Aggie Blue Bikes teaching people how to maintain bikes. He can assemble and fix bikes in record time.
But Brandon is in Korea. And that left me to get the bikes ready. Me, who hardly rode a bike after I turned ten. Me, who never owned a bike with handle bar brakes or a multiple gears until I married Brandon. Me, who really could care less about bikes.
I do have an idea of how they work though so I got out Brandon's tools and got to work. You can't really tell, but the laptop is in this picture. Brandon skyped with me and talked me through the process of removing a back tire to change an inner tube. He also helped me tighten a few things. Luckily the bikes were all in pretty good condition.
This picture doesn't have anything to do with Easter, but it does show one of the things that makes living by ourselves possible. The twins are really good helpers. I needed to do something for Charlotte and so Lydia took over feeding Veronica for a minute. I didn't ask her to, she just saw a need and stepped in.
And her is a picture of Veronica in the car. I didn't put her there. Lydia somehow did it. Lydia's started carrying Veronica around. I think Veronica is going to learn how to walk early out of self defense.
Sister Coombs helped the girls frost Easter cookies on Thursday. We love Elder and Sister Coombs. They are so wonderful.
Thursday evening Charlotte fell asleep during dinner. She slept until around 8:00 and then stayed up until MIDNIGHT. What's crazier than that is that Lydia, who did not have a nap, stayed up with her. I could hear them talking and playing in their room even after I turned off my computer and went to bed.
On Friday I hosted a luncheon for my friends. Three other mom's came over with their kids. I completely forgot to take pictures, but I promise we had a great time. I love doing things like this. It's fun for me to rearrange the furniture and have a reason to dust.
We didn't have anything scheduled for Saturday so I decided that would be a good day to have the Easter Bunny come. So Friday night the kids set out their Easter baskets.
After they went to bed I got out the candy I'd stashed. I realized it was quite a bit more than I thought I had so I only gave them about half.
I also found the hand-me-down Easter clothes from my Aunt Lori and my friend Ashley.
I hid the Easter baskets under the laundry table. (See my perma- laundry pile). I bought Bridge-mix candy and put in in piles around the laundry room and living room to look like rabbit poo.
And then I finished up the bikes. Walmart didn't have training wheels (one more reason to hate Walmart) and so I'd ordered them through my parents' Amazon prime account. I'd been planning on putting the wheels on the blue bike, but after they showed up I realized that the bolts weren't big enough.
Thank goodness for a back up bike with long enough bolts. The girls had asked for horns so I bought those. They were $6 and in my opinion pretty over priced since I only paid $7 for the bikes, but hey Daddy is in Korea so we have to make up for his absence somehow.
Charlotte woke me up the next morning by saying, "Mom, the Easter Bunny left candy in the hall! It looks like poo, but it's candy! I checked!" She and Lydia had a lot of fun collecting the "poo" and then feeding it to the cars and Barbies.
They also were really excited about their baskets.
Derrick didn't care much about his basket, but he did eat some candy.
Veronica just wanted baby food.
We had a nice morning. Brandon was able to skype with us. It was his night time. He'd had a VERY productive Saturday and accomplished some things that we have been trying to get done for over a year. I don't want to jinx anything so that is all I will say about that.
I gave the kids bubbles so we all went outside to play with those.
Derrick tried to eat the bubbles.
Charlotte got very good at blowing them.
I also gave the kids chalk. The girls started writing letters. Lydia's favorite letter is H. She also likes L.
Veronica had a fun time playing in spilled bubble water.
Here's Lydia drawing on the fence.
We pretty much spent the morning doing nothing (and watching Cars of course). It was really nice to not have anything planned. I'm glad we didn't have to rush off to church or an egg hunt. I highly recommend doing Easter baskets on Saturday.
Here are the girls drawing rainbows.
And yes they LOVED their bikes. Derrick didn't really care about his other than ringing the bell on it. It was lighter and easier to pedal than the other bikes to the the girls took turns practicing riding on it instead of their bikes.
In the afternoon my friend Ashley came over and we dyed hard boiled eggs.
And when we were done with that we put baking soda in the vinegar water.
We spent a lot of time out on the patio because Lydia kept demanding that I help her pedal.
I think this is one of my favorite pictures of Lydia ever. It totally captures her personality. Princess dress, helmet, basket of chalk, and bike. She was so happy to have a bike. She worked really hard to learn how to pedal. She went from not knowing at all what to do, to being able to pedal across the whole patio. Now she just needs to get better at steering and I might let her out into the front yard. I purposely bought the bikes a little big so that by the time Brandon gets home we will be ready to go on real bike rides as a family. (That's been one of his fantasies for years.)
Charlotte slipped off and took a nap - she'd been up late again the night before "talking to the Easter Bunny on the tender (pretend) phone."
After she woke up we went to the park. Then everyone took a bath. Can you believe this pic?
It was getting late, but we needed to do movie night because that's the only way I can comb out the girls' hair. I decided that we'd watch The Testaments movie about Jesus because it's only an hour long. It also was a good way to transition from a candy filled Easter to a Christ centered Easter. The girls were very upset when Jesus died in the movie and then they were very happy when he was resurrected. Charlotte said, "he's in his while shirt!" I think my favorite moment was when they depicted the scene of Jesus healing the man by the pool of Bethesda. It looks just like the
Carl Bloch painting. Charlotte said, "hey that's like that picture at church!"
This morning we had to hurry as usual to make it to church by 8:30. But I took time to get this picture of the girls in their Easter Dresses.
Derrick was running around, but I caught this one of him. I gave him a hair cut yesterday and that, combined with the new shirt, made it so I didn't really recognize him all day.
Church was a lot better than last week. We made it though all of sacrament meeting without going in the hall. So that was a success. The primary kids sang in Sacrament Meeting. Lydia was too scared to go up, but Charlotte did. Her little head barely peeked above the railing. She didn't sing, but she smiled the whole time. It was the cutest thing ever!
After church Derrick took a nap. Charlotte and Lydia played in a rain storm that rolled through.
Here are Veronica and me. You can't really tell, but my hair is curly. I recently bought some new curlers and I love them.
When Derrick woke up from his nap we went over to my neighbor Kelly's house. Her husband was Brandon's roommate for the first two months that they were in Korea. She hosted a Easter Dinner for four other family's. We had an egg hunt while some of the food finished cooking.
There were about 10 other kids who participated in the hunt, but we still ended up with a lot of eggs.
Dinner was yummy. Derrick wasn't feeling well and was really clingy so we kind of had to eat and run.
I took the kids for a drive and we were planning on having a little candy eating picnic, but Charlotte, Lydia, and Veronica ended up falling asleep. So instead I ate all the good candy while Derrick pushed all the buttons in the front seat. It was a win-win.
Charlotte and Lydia never really woke up this evening (all those late nights caught up to them) so I put them to bed soon after we came home. Derrick and Veronica went down pretty easy too.
I had a great weekend, but oh my gosh I am worn out. I love hanging out with people, but I'm an introvert so I'm always really drained afterward. It's kind of like working out. I get a high from being around people, but I feel wiped out afterward. I'm glad I don't have anything planned for tomorrow. I need a day to just relax (and clean my house again.)
Anyway, Happy Easter.
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