Easter Weekend at Gram's

Me and my boy, in his overalls.

While Gram prepared for our tea party, we went on a walk with Papa Kevin.

Hazel and Charlotte always stick together and Eloise seems to do just fine on her own, making her way behind them.

 

Gram started a new tradition this year of having a tea party with the girls. We all made fancy hats in the morning...

 

 

One more of this cutie tootie. 

 Sweet Hazel will forever remember this as that time Gram burned her finger with the hot glue gun while she was helping her make her hat:)

 

After our hike, we put on some nice clothes and ate triangle egg-salad sandwiches with fancy toothpicks and olives and truffles and homemade cupcakes. It was quite the occasion.

Gram was so patient and just laughed when Lottie spilled her tea on her, twice.

Ellie had a hiccup with her exit strategy.

I look forward to this tradition with these beautiful Phipps women.

In the afternoon, we had our own Easter egg hunt in the backyard and then we "egged" one of their neighbors by hiding 11 filled eggs with one that was empty for Jesus' empty tomb. That was done for us this year and we loved it, so we thought we should pass it on.

I'd like to always do a service on Easter, just like we do with Christmas, as we remember Christ's greatest service to us all.

We inherited these dresses from our good friends' the Zaugg's. Don't they look so nice and matchy matchy?

David spoke in church and I sang "If You Could Hie to Kolob" for which I was very nervous.

Easter week

Happy Monday! We love our walks around the neighborhood around here. I'd love to know how many times we've circled the block, each year with an additional child:)

 

Any time I do something like this with hair, I feel ridiculously proud.

And this afternoon I braved Target with all four children for the first time. The girls fed mini M&M's to Edison who would NOT stay put. I was desperate to find seamless underwear for my little Hazel who has a fit just about every morning because her underwear doesn't feel right. Who does she get this from?

I actually packed Hazel's lunch the night before. And it's right here in the fridge, ready. I did that.

Monday night was Phippsite Nite! This has become a tradition worth sticking with. We acted out the story of Alma's escape to Zarahemla.

Edison has been crawling over to the piano and stands up to play. Love it. 

Tuesday night we started our Easter week devotionals. We read in Matthew about Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem and watched Finding Faith in Christ.

On Wednesday I made two lasagnas, which deserves a trophy. We had our second Easter devotional where we read the Parable of the Fig Tree and talked about using our talents.

Thursday was free dress at school. Doesn't she look hip?

 

That afternoon we  made snowflake eggs. Instead of showing them how to do it and leaving them on their own while I do one of my many "to-do's," I decided to snuggle up next to Hazel on the couch and made more snowflake eggs with her. It was nice to just be present with her and I'm glad I took advantage of that opportunity to sit with her longer than I had planned. We taped the eggs onto our front door (we egged it:) for decoration.

We also decided to bring our violins outside for practice today as well. Don't they look so lovely?  Hazel brought a bowl out onto our blanket in case passersby wanted to leave a tip. I texted David and he came up from work in the basement with a dollar bill. I'm so grateful he works from home.

Hazel took this pic of me helping Charlotte play. Kinda crazy to me that David and I have this special secret just between us that no one else knew about for a few more weeks...

After that we headed over to the Loosli's for their annual neighborhood Easter egg hunt.

After the hunt, we came home and I put on some soft church music while we set the table quietly. I told the girls that we'd be talking about Jesus' last supper tonight so they acted reverently (I think they are loving these devotionals). I put Hazel in charge of napkins and she worked on it for a while on her own. We heated up leftover lasagna (a decent last supper right??) and when I sat down, I saw this:

This made my whole Easter. She gets it.

I went to a RS meeting after dinner where the speaker said, "Success is not achieving what you're working for, but seeing the Lord's hand along the way." Amen.

On Friday we dyed eggs--our own chicken eggs! They turned out lovely. On a sad note, our chicken Ollie died today. Rest in peace little Ollie. We think it was a heart attack?

And what you see here in this picture is the extent of our Easter holiday decor.

Routine. No, excitement! No, routine.

YES.

Edison, standing and clapping in his Tom's. 

Love that those pricey little shoes are already getting put to use again.

Spaceman jammies.

Holy Sunday. Again. Didn't get enough sleep. House was messy. Out of desperation, I put Ellie to bed in her sisters' room so she wouldn't wake up Edison. Her sisters were downstairs coloring their entire faces with marker. I told them I'd take them to church that way, so they cleaned up and I was curling their hair downstairs when we heard a crash. I figured Ellie was getting into things so I ignored the crash and finished hair. I got Edison out of bed and listened in on Eloise. I heard soft moaning, so I opened to door and saw blood everywhere! She had knocked over Charlotte's snowglobe and cut her finger which was bleeding everywhere. I felt horrible. By time I got her cleaned up, I came downstairs to a screaming Edison who burned his foot (really bad) on my flat iron which I left on downstairs. Mother of the year. Charlotte got lotion in her hair, I wrapped Edison's feet in gauze, put on his church socks, and we made it to church. Wow.

Hazel wanted to show what she'd look like without bangs.

Edison boy, one year old.

That hair, that smile. He has my heart.