A-Hunting We Will Go

I had told my family that dinner on Easter would be at 5pm. I was so proud of myself at 3pm and again at 4pm when my part of the dinner was right on schedule. At 4:15 I even remembered to check when the rolls needed to be cooked. I was ON TOP of it.

Until about 5:05 when we started setting everything out to serve and my mom said, "Where's the asparagus?"

Riiiighht....the asparagus. The asparagus that Mike was supposed to grill due to lack of oven space. The asparagus that would be taking at least 15 minutes to cook. I'm sure my panicked look was all my mom needed to suggest that the Easter egg hunt begin sooner rather than later.

Mike stood guard by the pool and Jake and Maddie tried to help the smaller kids look while keeping an eye out for their own hidden eggs. Jake misunderstood the instructions of, "Maddie and Jake - there is a blue and green egg you have to find." He thought that meant they each had two - so he found them both. He tried to hide it again for Maddie, but I think the other kids kept finding it.

Austin found his fairly quickly.

He was also the first to cheer on Katelyn when she found hers.

Ashley and Dan wandered around and finally came upon another egg.

Ellie wasn't too sure about the egg under the leaves at first, but I think didn't want to be left out in the end.
Then everyone scouted once more to find that seventh egg for Riley who was eagerly waiting inside for her egg filled with M&M candies.

And you know what? By the time the egg hunt was over the asparagus was smelling pretty great and dinner was ready. Whew.

Happy Easter

Hopefully the bunny was good to all.

Saturday night the kids colored Easter eggs. This may have been the fastest it's ever been completed.



In the shot above Jake was trying out the brown dye. I was a bit curious as to how this would look - it didn't seem to be a very spring-like color in my mind.

This was the result after Jake soaked it awhile. I think we'd be better off just buying brown eggs au natural at the supermarket.


Of course, Jake had to get the orange egg.

Maddie is our more artistic egg dyer. She gets into which colors go well together and how they can be blended. Some of her favorite eggs are the ones where she just starts randomly dipping. In the past, her fingers have been quite a rainbow on Easter morning but this year the paper towel took the brunt of the mess.

Our Sunday started early, but we had a lovely day.

I may be slightly biased, but we had the cutest kids at church...

Maddie was really excited about her dress (she loved the halter top part) and she knew right away that her hair styled in a bun would be perfect. If you'll also notice: no clip-on tie for Jake. We learned our lesson at Christmas.

I had to be to church early, so the rest of the family met me there. When Jake got to church he exclaimed that the bunny had left him some Star Wars Legos! In fact, his exact words were, "Man! That Easter Bunny must KNOW how much I love Star Wars!" This was said in the entrance of church; I believe the people in the sanctuary actually heard him.

After church we enjoyed a breakfast downstairs hosted by the youth group. This is actually something both kids thoroughly enjoy. I don't know why. It's tasty, I guess, but they waste no time in getting downstairs immediately after the first service. Today they stayed a little later than normal to keep me company between services. They had these little toys that were Angels and the Virgin Mary - only they were attached to springs so they would pop off the table. We spent a good 30 minutes coming up with games to play where we had to catch the popping Angels and Marys in various ways. Ahhh...the things that can entertain us Lutherans.

Later that day my family came over to celebrate with a big meal of ham and all sorts of goodies. The kids had an Easter egg hunt in the backyard. We'll finish up with that post tomorrow.

Here, Birdie, Birdie!

This morning my dad took the kids to Lowe's for the "Build and Grow" workshop that they had for kids second-grade and up. I pulled Jake aside and told him that if anyone should ask, he should answer that he was in second grade. He nodded and then processed what I said and replied, "But...that would be lying." I just nodded yes, but I told him since I told him to do it, it would be okay. Reason #487 why our kids will probably need a therapist someday.


But, they had a good time and came home with some nice looking houses. I was actually surprised at how sturdy they are. Maddie said that it wasn't busy until after they arrived and she followed it with, "I guess they all wanted to be where the Murphy family was." At age nine we can call that a healthy dose of confidence.

To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of birdhouses. I don't know why; I know some people find it relaxing to watch. So, I'm not sure where they'll end up. Mike said he could attach them to the fence, but the anal-retentive part of my psyche can't do that. I'm hoping Mr. Fix-it can come up with a way to attach a string to hang them off of something. Maybe we'll buy those planters you stick in the ground and put them in the corners of the yard where we transplanted our lillies last year. That will keep the mess from the birds that Mike hates away from the general area of the pool where everyone steps.

And no one had to commit a sin Easter weekend by lying about their age; Jake wasn't asked.

Lean Mean, Grilling Machine

Jake turn to cook dinner was Saturday night. This time around, everyone has to make something they've never made. He chose hot dogs. Obviously, we've had hot dogs before. But, Jake's never gotten to grill them so he was very excited. Grilling is his new-found love.

So, after shoveling off any remaining snow on the deck (yes...we still had snow) he got to work. Maddie wasn't super enthused about this meal; she's not a fan of hot dogs. She especially does not like grilled hot dogs...she doesn't like the marks. So, her hot dog was nuked.

Jake thought it was an especially great day. At church Sunday morning there was a small reception where they served...you guessed it...mini hot dogs. He had eight between two services. Then it was hot dogs for dinner. He told us a story after getting home that when they were waiting for me at church, he thought he smelled me coming up behind him, but then realized it was his hot dog. I told him he needed to work on his compliments before he started dating.

When Maddie woke up this morning she opened the cupboard to find out what was for lunch at school and groaned. Hot dogs. Needless to say, she brought her lunch. Someone in the house informed Jake he would probably start smelling like hot dogs.

Aha Moment

Last night Maddie was practicing and I was giving her a little piano lesson and we were working on one of her pieces. Lately I've been trying to get her to realize that she's further along in studying than just reading the notes and playing technically. I want her to really start trying to add dynamics and create different sounds - to be a well rounded musician. We've butted heads a few times because, like most kids her age, she just wants to play everything fast and in her own words, "I just like to play loud."

Well, we got to her recital piece last night. Against her will she's been practicing diligently with a metronome for well over a week at a slower speed. This piece can fly, but I wanted her to get control of it before we start working on that. This went against every bone in her body, I think, but she did it, mostly because I was in the next room reminding her if she "forgot".

My metronome is currently under repair so I listened to her play without it and she did great so we decided to take it a little faster. Then we decided to take it even a bit faster with me being the metronome.

She got through it. And it sounded awesome. It was faster AND she put in dynamics all over the place! But the best part was when she hit the last note and we just looked at each other and she had this gigantic grin. A Cannot-Contain-My-Enthusiasm-I-ROCK grin.

Being a teacher, that moment was just one of those rare "They got it! FINALLY!" moments. Being a mom though - I was about ready to bust. Not just because she got it musically, but because for that moment Maddie had this huge amount of pride in what she had accomplished - and wasn't embarrassed by it.

Then, being 9, she decided to try it again, but at about triple her speed. I just rolled my eyes, placed my hands on her shoulders and she looked at me and shrugged. A girl's gotta try.

Heading South for Spring Break

Thursday we all piled into the car and headed to Davenport for our Spring Break vacation. Mike was only too happy to escape the impending snow Minneapolis was forcasted to receive.

As always, it was tons of fun for Maddie and Jake to get to goof around with their Murphy cousins. When we arrived, Grandma got a hug from both kids...

but then they beelined over to Ginger to give her some attention....

We did get our Whitey's ice cream - actually we had it for lunch on Friday. We also had Harris Pizza for dinner that night; this is a favorite of Mike's.

Friday night Mike was none-too-happy to hear that Davenport was forcasting 3-7 inches of snow for Saturday night. He was in denial all day that they would receive it (honestly, I didn't think they'd get it either). Then about 4:30pm....

Not happy. (He was even more distressed to find out later that Minnesota actually didn't get any snow.) The roads actually weren't great, but they could have been worse getting to Illinois. However, we were very happy to go. Mike's cousin, Colleen, was hosting a big party for their son. It was so fun to connect with that whole side of the family; we usually get to see them about once a year. When the snow fall was all said and done - they did not receive the anticipated amount. There was maybe an inch left on the ground. You can imagine our excitement at 6am on Sunday when we heard someone snow blowing the sidewalk out front. And as nice as that neighbor was to help out, he wasn't alone. We were shocked to see at least two others out snow blowing their driveways before we left at 10am. Given another hour, we were pretty sure it would have melted on its own.

I always intend to take tons of pictures when we are down there, and in all the playing and running around, I forget. Hopefully it'll be good weather next time we are down there and we can get a little photo shoot in of all the grandkids. This one is a little outdated....

Hijacked

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Jake is hijacking today's blog. He has been inspired by Lego-A-Day and created his own scene. Everything after this has been done by him: pictures, wording, typing....
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aaah Anakin I think you soldint jump

sr I can... aaah ya your right.

***Translation: "Aaaah, Anakin, I think you shouldn't jump."

"Sure I can...ah, yeah, you're right."****