Easter Traditions and Surprises

Easter is one of the best times of year in our house. Over the past few years we have done several things during the week before Easter to honor the life of Jesus Christ and to make His atonement and resurrection more meaningful for our kids. Some of our traditions include reading the New Testiment and having an "Old Jerusalem" style feast where we eat from a low table using no utensils. This year the menu included Challah bread, rotisserie chicken, lentil soup (not a big hit), nuts, dried fruit, melon and cucumbers. Of course, it's all done by candle light. This year I tried using oil lamps from Jerusalem to light our meal. It looked pretty cool until one of the lamps caught on fire. On Easter morning among the usual surprises waiting for the kids was this nest and little sign sitting on our kitchen table...

"Time to make a little more room in the nest. We'll soon have a new chick hatching in our family. We're having a baby!"

I have never seen two girls become so excited, and we have had nothing but baby talk since Sunday morning. The girls have rearranged everyone's sleeping arrangements and have just about chosen a name for their future sibling. Now, if they could only convince Mark that we need to find out the sex of the baby--these girls have plans to make. Matthew has finally gotten into it as well and has now offered to teach the baby his ninja moves. He has also insisted on feeding the baby oreos (via mom, of course). Thoughtful lad.

This was definitely an Easter to remember. Only time will tell whether the tradition or the surprise was the most memorable. Probably the surprise.

Spring Break

I've been blogging long enough to know that I have to post my photos before my text, but I forgot this time. Therefore, you can see the pictures and THEN read about what we did... Oh, dear. Abbie cooling off a the falls.

Soaking our feet at Palm Canyon. We loved it here.

Poolside with the kids.

Daddy and kiddos enjoying the fountain and waiting for the candy shop to open.

The rotating arial tram was NEAT!

Snow in April...in Palm Springs??

Someone is excited!!

It's Thursday afternoon (does 5:54 still count as afternoon?) and the forth official day of spring break. I am sitting at the computer sifting through pictures from our recent Palm Springs get-away as my three kids are in the backyard filling up water bombs and exploding them all over the yard and each other, while the winds blow and temperature continues to drop. It's been cold here. Since we've been home, we've had rain both days and it's really too cold to do anything other than go to the movies (Diary of a Whimpy Kid II).

Ahh, but that's alright. It's just nice to have a break from the normal school routine, and if we have to leave town to enjoy a little bit of sun, so be it. We are heading to Tucson in a couple of days to stay at our favorite place, and we'll get more than enough sunshine there to last us until the sun finally decides to shine in sunny San Diego...

The kiddos are still outside, and I haven't heard any tears yet, so I've got time to post a few pictures of Palm Springs. First off, I've never been there before. Weird. It's only a two hour drive from where we live, and the same distance from where I grew up, but I guess it took wanting to get away with a husband and three kids to get me there. I liked it. The temperature was really nice, we liked our hotel and pool, and found a lot of great outdoor activities. One of the highlights for all of us was hiking thru Indian Canyon. Who would have expected a gushing waterfall, a small river (or rushing stream) and a forest of palm trees all with in a short walk. The next day we took a 2.5 mile revolving tram ride up to the top of the San Jacinto Mts. and discovered SNOW at the top and beauitful views of the dessert.

All in all, we loved the time together and enjoyed being in a new town and environment.

OK, I just heard someone yell, "shakin' bacon!!!" and turned to see the kids IN THE HOUSE with the water balloons exploding on the wood floors. Busted. No more blogging for today...