Easter 2010

We decided to stick around town this Easter instead of going to Lehi to spend it with nieces and nephews like in years past. Thankfully a lot of other family decided to do the same thing so I didn't have to make the "holiday ham" all by myself. After enjoying the first session of the LDS General Conference, we quickly got all of the eggs dyed (the traditional grenade egg didn't turn out as well, but we had a pretty good gangster, basketball, zebra, cow, and beach ball) and the babies loaded up to head over to Meghan and Carson's house for the second session and Easter dinner. Karinne, Dalen, and Dalen's dad were there too and it was great to spend it together.
I was in charge of dessert so I bought a $4 Marie Calendars Banana "crub" pie and attempted to make a Baked Alaska. It turned out pretty good - but the ice cream melted when I baked it and it took about four hours to freeze again so we enjoyed it a few days later. Oops. All of the other food was great though and Keegan got his fill of ham!

The babies were a great addition to this Easter compared to last and we had fun taking pictures of them in bunny ears and giving them lettuce to suck on :-) By the end of the day they were pretty worn out and a little sad. Overall they are such good babies!

We opened Grandma Garrity's Easter baskets after the official day of Easter, but I don't think Rowan or Miriam minded. They loved all of the toys and I loved the clothes they got! (The babies liked the tags on the clothes.)

We are pretty spoiled and glad that we have such good family near and far to share the holidays with.

Easter Weekend

For Easter weekend we just couldn't pass up being with a bunch of kids...even though we knew they were sick. Keegan was always the "Holiday Child" at home meaning that he was the one who really got into all of the festivities and traditions. Now that he's older he is still all about watching the movie Groundhog Day on Feb 2nd, dying his original Grenade Egg the Saturday before Easter, carving pumpkins for Halloween, etc. Even though we do all of these things without kids, it is much more fun WITH kids! So, just like last year, we packed up and headed to Lehi to visit my sister and her family.

When we arrived we were greeted by a living room FULL of my grandparents things that they wanted to get rid of. Most of it eventually went to Goodwill/Deseret Industries, but we scored a few things that will be useful like more pillows, Christmas garlands, towels, rugs, etc. Nothing too exciting, but nice. I also spent a lot of the weekend going through old baby clothes and took a bunch home as well so that will be great when the time comes! Gotta love hand-me-downs.

Keegan was good to keep the kids sidetracked while the adults (me and two of my sisters) cleared out all of the stuff and made dinner. Then it was finally time to dye eggs! Keegan had helped the kids come up with a plan of action so they each knew exactly what they wanted their eggs to look like. I think they turned out pretty good! We had some pretty creative ones.
After church on Sunday we hid all of the eggs and had our hunt. It all went fairly good at first. Keegan and Hannah set the ground rules, but unfortunately they were broken and we ended up with 2/3 kids crying b/c "It wasn't fair!" "That wasn't fun! Not one bit!" I had to kind of smile amidst the tears. The oldest kid had a lot easier time finding and reaching the majority of the eggs, and the ground rule of how many he could find and put in his basket wasn't understood very well. Neither was the warning from his dad to "Let Kirsten find the easy ones!" haha. So the oldest ended up with the majority of the eggs, the next got her fair share but felt jipped, the next was as happy as could be with a little less than her share, and the youngest was sick and taking a nap and didn't care because he was too young anyway. After about 20 minutes of crying it was pretty much forgotten. We had a wonderful dinner with Keegan's favorite "Holiday Ham." He has the majority of my family calling it that now.Later that night we took turns stumping the oldest child with our good hiding spots. We had a little lesson using plastic easter eggs that each had something representing the last days of Christ's life, his Atonement, and the Resurrection. For example in one egg there were three dimes representing the 30 pieces of sliver that Judas Iscariot received for betraying Jesus. In another a piece of white linen because that is what Christ was buried in, etc. And the very last egg was empty! Most of the kids paid attention pretty well and helped with reading things and opening the eggs. (We made sure it was fair.) Then we went downstairs and laid out blankets and pillows by the TV and watched The Lamb of God which is a movie that depicts everything that the little egg lesson talked about. Despite how young the kids are they really seemed to grasp the true meaning of Easter.

The next day we packed a picnic lunch complete with egg salad sandwiches, and took the two not-as-sick kids to the park. They got worn out pretty fast since they were still recovering, but it was still pretty fun. We had a run-in with a scooter thief, dodged the seagulls, performed a LOT of under-doggies on the swings, and caught the youngest about 50 times trying to climb up the slide instead of go down. :-) We left for Logan shortly after getting back from the park but heard that they went to bed fairly early that night because they were so tired. I'm sure that was a nice break for their mom too!

Easter and more

This Easter we decided to go down to Lehi, UT and visit Hannah and Karl and their four cute kids. On Friday afternoon we loaded the car, picked up Karinne and her roommate Whitney W. and headed down.

Meghan and Carson had driven down the night before because the Esplin's came up from Cedar City to Provo. The original plan was that Megs and Cars would drive down to Cedar but things changed. They spent a lot of the time with the Esplins but we still got to see them a lot too.
When we got there we were greeted by all of the kids and Nani ;-) The kids were pretty funny when they heard we were all coming- when Meghan was talking to Kirsten on the phone the convo went something like this:

MEGHAN: We're going to come and see you this weekend!
KIRSTEN: And Nani too?!
MEGHAN: Yeah Nani will come and Carson will come too.
KIRSTEN: Oh and Nani too?!

Hahah. They love that dog. Then when the kids found out that Keegan and Karinne and I would be coming down Alyssa gave a shriek of joy and Jacen started chanting, "I get to play Yoshi's Island, I get to play Yoshi's Island!" They are so funny. While in Texas we found a lady on Craigslist selling a gameboy micro for really cheap and Keegan convinced me that we should get it for our LONG drive home. So ever since, Jacen has played it every time we've gotten together ;-) Yoshi's Island was his game of choice for the past couple of months. Well, just as we were about to go into the canyon on our drive, Keegan asked me if I had remembered to pack it. My eyes got wide and and my heart nearly stopped- I had forgotten it! The very thing that Jacen had been looking forward to all week long! I remembered how it was to be a kid and get super excited for something and then be let down. (I still get that way sometimes ;-) I felt terrible. I kept trying to come up with different things in my head that I could get for him to make-up for it but nothing good (and inexpensive) came to mind. I just had to deal with the fact that I would let him down.

When we got there he didn't even ask for it right away like usual and when I told him I had forgotten it he quickly replied, "That's o.k, I have a Play Station and games on the computer that I can play. haha." He was so cute about it! Then later that weekend after playing games, dying eggs, and going on egg hunts, he said, "Ya know, I'm kinda glad you forgot the gameboy. I've... I've had a lot of fun without it!" Hannah and I were pretty proud when he said that ;-) He's such a good kid.

Keegan dyed his traditional grenade egg and had a holiday theme for all of his other eggs as well. Normally I'm not too creative with my egg dying but I have to say mine were pretty good looking this year. Hannah bought the traditional egg-dying kit but one with an extra kick. It also came with a kit to make tye-dyed eggs. They were pretty groovy looking and the kids liked it almost as much as the adults so it was great. I'll see what I can do about getting some pictures soon.

In between March Madness basketball games and egg-dying, Keegan and Karl went to Lowes and bought a new grill. So of course they bought a few pounds of red meat to go along with it. We had steaks and hot dogs for dinner that night and they were really good! It had been a really long time since I'd had a steak. Karl delivered the famous Dad quote "For poor people we sure eat good!" and we all had a good time. We fell asleep that night to watching the 1970's make of "Where the Red Fern Grows" Not as good as the book of course but I still leaked a tear when Dan and little Anne died. So Sad! Sorry for any of you that haven't read it yet.

Sunday we all got up and raced to get ready for 9a.m church with 12 people and 2 bathrooms and were just a few minutes late ;-) I guess that's Monson tradition as well. Church was good and my favorite was when the primary kids sang "I'm Trying to be Like Jesus." It was so precious and really brought in the meaning of Easter. There were other musical numbers performed one of which was an organ solo of "Consider the Lilies." That is a definite favorite of mine. I love it when scriptures are put to music in such an inspired way- it was beautiful.

When we got home the kids were excited to begin their egg hunt (Keegan was such a great Easter Bunny ;-) and it was so fun to watch them crawling on all fours, hopping up to see on top of counters, and running around to find the eggs. Lyssa got especially excited when she found the bright purple egg with flowers on it that she had died. It was fun.

The rest of the day was pretty relaxing and it was just fun to be together as a family and celebrate such a great event. Hannah and Meghan got together great Easter baskets for everyone- even Nani -and we all felt loved ;-) The only down side was that Meghan was and had been sick and Keegan came down with it too. It hit him pretty bad which is unusual because he doesn't get sick much- let alone have something knock him out. He had a fever and when he went to the doctor a couple of days later he was pretty sure it was strep. He's feeling better now but had to miss the final rounds of the ward's basketball tournament. They made it to the championship game and then lost. Bummer. He's getting over it now and feeling much better. But despite that downer we love spending time in Lehi and hope one day we'll be able to spend another Easter there!!