March 30-31

This was a rather busy weekend for our family… first off… HAPPY EASTER everyone! And in the same breath – Happy Birthday Uncle James! The 30th was my brother’s birthday… so of course yours truly had to get in a call to him and his wife Holly that night… but first… the day of the 30th…

Dressed in their Easter gifts from Gammie

With Nana and Baba settled in for the morning it was finally time to do the yearly dying of the eggs. This year was amazingly… brief. But the results were colourful and pretty.

Getting at it

So pretty on our Easter table

Even Echo got in on the dying… once we took all her clothes off of course!

Busy baby

Ken and Emanuel had some special Daddy/Son time playing PS3.

Gaming together

The evening was the main source of excitement – Grandma and Grandpa Mike were in town for an over nighter on their way to Route 66 and 3 weeks of travels.

Grandma!

So there were presents to check out… And the pool to swim in (they really DO need those lessons this summer!)…

Thank you Tammy and family for the belated Christmas present!

Pool time

Venturing out

With Mommy… in need of a new suit I think

And then back to the room for snacks…

Noms

We were there well past 10… our 3rd late night of the week. Ouch!

In their dresses with their new teddies… one is white, the other off white

Boys and their toys… mini Fat Sheep

I have a series of her in the mirror… they will be in an overflow entry!

Sunday the 31st was Easter Sunday. Another jam packed day of course. First though, with all that tulle and matching dresses and the boys all in plaid it was time for PICTURES!!!

Pretty Baby

All my babies in a row

Just my girls

With the traditional Easter Hats

And then, back to Grandma and Grandpa Mike’s hotel room for some more cuddle time while we watched tv, visited and played around until 11 am and check out.

All in their Easter duds

Playing with Grandpa Mike’s watch

After check out we went to the nearby McDonalds for lunch. And then it was time to say good bye and see them off on their first leg of their journey – Mall of America.

At McDonalds

Yum!

Two tables of course

Me and my Mommy

We returned home in time for the Johnson family festivities… so pictures with the cousin first…

Proud grandparents

Then baskets and a wardrobe change for Echo (and eventually Trinity)! The Easter Bunny was generous this year.

Bunny related chaos

Outfit #2

With lots to eat there was plenty of room around the table.

DINNER

And lots of time to play.

Playing in the 3 seasons porch

Our first Easter in Minnesota was a BUSY weekend..,. but an amazing one all the same!

…and best of all we were all together

March 28-29

We got our Novak family fix over the last  two days of the week. Thursday was a special day for our god son and his big brother… their first communion (Lutheran Style). Our whole family spent the evening with them. But first, our day back with Nana and Baba. I was grateful that I managed to get their spelling practice in (our test is delayed to the following week to accommodate our Easter schedule) and some reading… a little bit of this and that. But mostly… Nana and Baba time!

Looking at trip pictures

We did get in some paper airplanes time! What a great find those books on how to were for 1.00 at Christmas!

Gavin and Emanuel

Ken was in office so it was up to me to get all 5 kids and myself ready for our first church experience in a while. I think they cleaned up nicely! With the weather warming up there was a last minute scramble to find shoes that fit the boys… definitely going to have to get Zander a new pair as he is the biggest, no pass me downs!

Miss Echo got dressed first HOURS earlier… she was adamant… it was time to look pretty

All the pretty babies

Miss Trinity

The service was nice, the music lovely and our 9 kids… manageable though not perfect.

Andy and the children… well some of them

I am so proud of our god son… he is growing up so quickly! I remember being at his baptism and being just as proud!

Our boy!!!

Andrew’s godparents with their two little darlings also managed to make the special Maundy Thursday service. Their little girls and my little girls had some fun after service together. I wish I had gotten a picture of Echo’s good bye hug.

Andrew and his godparents

Post first Communion… together

After all that fun and with Friday being a holiday for all but Big Andy what was there to do but say good bye to Andrew’s godparents and their family and head back to the Novaks’ for cupcakes and play time. It is so great to see more of Andy with him no longer driving trucks… just fixing them.

Andrew and the cupcakes

The children descend

We have so much fun with this family!

Friday started our Novak experience all over again with a morning egg hunt at one of their local parks… in fine Minnesota tradition… in the snow. Not so much an egg hunt as an egg mad dash. Ken and Anthony took the girls to their age range, Darcy Aidan and Emanuel and then I made sure the twins and Alex made it to theirs while Andrew helped where he could.

Walking to the field

The little ones

Emanuel and Aidan

The twins and Alex

In the end everyone got candy but Alex and Gavin each got bigger prizes.

With the prizes

Easter Bunny

We all headed back to the house, less Andrew who came after lunch, and made hotdogs and KD.

Snoopy

Then it was play time for the kids, naptime for Ken and Echo and shopping for Darcy and I. We made the circuit of all the Walgreens, Walmarts and Targets and got Darcy as close to ready for Easter as we could.

CANDY

5.00 pizza for dinner and Ken hard at work on the household pc’s… we watched Disney together… hung out… played… had an AMAZING day! Oh, and I gave out the first of my cupcake bags! 

My favourite one!

The guys working on the laptop

Anthony’s birthday is in April so it is time to plan out that first birthday gift where we are in the country. Exciting! But in the meantime… two action packed days more and Easter is over!!!

Again, Easter Egg Hunt in Minnesota!

For all of our Easter resources please refer to the blog entry titled “Easter Resources“.

March 26-27

Has it really been SEVEN WEEKS since Ken’s folks left for their vacation in Mexico??? Yup, yup it has! Our time of solo family living has come to a close for the next 5 months (or when we get our own special place… timeline flexible). We did not tell the kids the exact date of their return… a combination of grandparent surprise AND the interesting experiences we have had lately with delayed flights!

But first, before all of that – TUESDAY and our Easter focus education, crafting and general FUN! We had our book of the day – Easter by Let’s See Libraries: Holidays. Our last two books are all rather technical about Easter which is nice after all the stories we enjoyed previously.

Easter

We made TWO different baskets today… the first from our beloved Art for Kids site… through The Homeschool Classroom site.

Printed out

The other a wonderful simple woven paper envelope type basket from Education.com. As usual, links will be on the resource page or contact me personally!

Woven

We had to do the Jellybean prayer and poem… where each colour of bean represents part of the Easter story. Of course we didn’t have the right colours in our beans but we enjoyed them anyway. AND Trinity was able to draw some, count them AND copy the word JELLYBEAN for our lapbook… yes yes proud Mommy speaking!!!

Please excuse the background lol… the text get in me was a character talking about a decadent desert

We ended our night, after a family trip to Target (actually not too horrible!!) with an egg themed Dinosaur Train. Oh and popcorn!

Watching movie

The movie

Wednesday marked the end of our solo living of course… though the kids didn’t know that! I even managed to deflect suspicion when we had our in between flight call while I was already multi tasking two things. We had a dental appointment to alert them to (yup the reminder came mere weeks AFTER they left), an engagement (one of Ken’s friends here in Minnesota) and of course letting them in on a little bit of the getting Ted and Sean home debacle now over a month old (how has the time gone by???).

We made name plates out of foam with foam letters for each of the kids… there was some definite creative use of our letters going on!!

Easter names

We had a new Wild Kratts to enjoy — focusing on the Rhinoceros!

Symbiotic relationship

Art for Kids has not been slow on the adding of Easter themed items… first the Easter Bunny and then a Basket with Eggs! Gavin drew BOTH for us. Perfect to add to our lapbook folder. Assembly to follow… soon… I hope!!!

The bunny

The basket

We had our book of the day – Celebrate Easter by Deborah Heiligman, though the cover on our book was different than that link.

Celebrate Easter

There was cleaning to do…

Hard at work

Jell-o Jigglers to eat…

Jiggly

So all nice and organized… and ready for THE RETURN!!

Little miss adorable