Easter

Well I'd like to thank this Easter for letting me know that my kids are so so old. 

It was a little weird because we hid eggs and handed them colorful baskets and told them to go find the eggs, and it was just so obvious that Avery has aged out of this tradition. 

How. How has it slipped by so fast? I love my teens, but it's suspicious how much I don't remember them being children andor babies AT ALL. 

Is someone tricking me? 

Andrew is still a child. The thought of him growing any older is a horror story. How can this version of my silly boy possibly change into anything but a kid with skinny shoulders who spins round the kitchen while quizzing me on nonsense? 

Tonight before bed he came in my room and we played a round of ABC improve. Haha it was fabulous and random. I've never in my life mentioned improve to that child, but away we went with our story of me in a cage, and him not letting me out..."what do I look like, a BUTLER?"

Sunday night after our easter egg lesson, Andrew turned the eggs into a board game. 

Me and Avery stuck around to play it with him. It was a lot of Calvin Ball happening, but it was also really clever. The only problem was that there was no end in sight. 

At one point, about 20 minutes in, Avery got down on her belly and slid - literally slid - out of the kitchen over to the stairs. I keep cracking up about it. She just grinch belly snaked right out of the room. 

Andrew didn't even notice, but I kept laughing right out loud about it.

I stuck with it to the bitter end. Finally I said to Andrew "what is the end game? this could go on all night!" and he sped things along. 

haha I just love these kids. 

PS is life a blur to anyone else these days? I went to blog this and I swear I don't remember Easter. Good thing I have pictures. 

April and May are always the craziest! I am at the soccer field with Avery two hours every day, drive home, pick up baseballers, and turn right back around to hit the baseball fields for another two hours. What is happening? Good stuff though. Such good stuff. 

Easter

April Fools. 

I got the kids so good. They were mad about this trick. 

I also sent a plate of Brown E's down to the Chambers. 

We had a neighborhood egg hunt. 

My best buds. 

This is a yearly selfie tradition.

More character meet and greets. 

This is that one monster from Monster's Inc. 

What's his name? Sully I think.

Wall-E.

 Lotso Hugging Bear.

He smelled like strawberries.

This is Mater.

Early April Andrew just always had a face covered in marker, standing around being a silent character.

Koda didn't let the cone stop her from being a turkey. 

Conference.

Our family egg hunt. 

I remember being excited about having egg salad sandwiches, but somehow I got the instapot time wrong, and they were soft boiled eggs, which are inedible. 

Things were picking up and we were busy again, so I didn't make more. 

Spring break was around the corner. 

kisses, must publish. 

Easter Weekend 2020

A few weeks ago when this pandemic was brand new and everything was extra scary and the unknown loomed big in my mind, I noticed that the spring flowers were blooming. 

I said out loud to Lindsay: 

Why are they flowers blooming? Don't they know what's going on? 

This tree is at the church. Sometimes Jim has to stop by and print out a check or count tithing. We go with him and it's so fun to have a place to be. 

In the clerk's office there is this picture. 

I asked Evan if he could name any of them? and he knew 8! I was so surprised. 

Saturday morning we had our egg hunt.

The Easter gifts were interactive games we could play together with all the time we spend together. 

At first the marble run was super terrible and high maintenance (for me), 

but the kids eventually figured it out and it's super fun. 

We went to Galbraith for some fresh air. 

We ARE all mad here. 

Baker was out there showing off so bright, so white. 

Me and Lisa have been wanting to watch Jim and Joe do some tricks, so we bush whacked down Evo to watch them go on this crazy bridge, "The Stinger". 

It felt sketchy because there were so many bikers out today, and this trail is so fast, so we hurried out and away back onto our running trails. 

Also, I tripped and fell into a mud puddle. There was literally so many spots that weren't muddy, but the place I fell was the muddiest. 

Easter Sunday. 

Easter hair.

Corona hair. 

Handsomest child. 

I like his hair long, but if I am going to be his math teacher - we cannot have bangs in his face.

He gets super frustrated at the math, and then the bangs in his eyes compound the frustration, and all I can think is that if his hair wasn't bugging him so much, maybe the math wouldn't bug him so much. 

Anyway. 

This picture is the most important of our Easter weekend.

This Easter was so different and... hmmm...what's a good word...mute? 

We didn't dress up,

we didn't have a special meal (waffles and bacon!),

we didn't get a picture of us in our Sunday best outside. 

Our "church" lesson started out a terrible fail - but then came this great redemption that I didn't foresee coming.

First of all, taking the sacrament from home is hard. My kids find it hilarious. I don't know how to enforce reverence without yelling and shaming (non reverence!).

So Easter Sunday, Jim blessed and passed the sacrament and of course there was giggling and all that. 

So when that portion of "church" was over, we were going to do our "symbols in an egg" lesson, but I was way too angry and annoyed so I said: 

"I'm not doing that lesson with you guys. Jesus was resurrected, the end. Now I'm going to read my book (Jesus the Christ!*), you guys go be irreverent somewhere else."

They were so upset. They love the egg lesson. They tried to talk me into it but I ignored them and read my book.

Then Avery took the eggs and the boys into my room and they did the lesson on their own. 

As I sat there fuming, I overheard them discussing each symbol in the egg. I heard them teaching each other and trying to piece the story of Easter into their own words. 

I was intrigued. 

After a while they came in and said they could explain all the eggs but a few. I pointed them in the direction of the paper lesson sheet there on the table. 

They left and used the lesson sheet to fill in the blanks that they had missed. 

Then they came back and announced that Andrew had learned so much! and they wanted to tell us.

Of course my heart is completely melted by now, and they proceeded to teach ME and JIM the lesson of Easter. Andrew - the little knucklehead that doesn't listen to a world I say - was telling me all about each symbol. 

He opens an egg: "Oh! I know a lot of about this one...."

It was Easter Redemption in the Larsen home. 

*I have been reading the Easter portion of Jesus the Christ this year and it's SO good. 

PS The bishop is starting a virtual devotional next week, and for some reason I feel like it's unnecessary. I think because now that "church" has been cancelled, I have been more "to church" than ever before. There is more studying and prayer and fasting and focusing. 

But whatever. 

Next we went and explored around the low tide at Derelict Conveyor.

There was so much wild life!

Sea stars, eels, craps, spitting clams...