what was up... some week a while ago.

It's been one week since you looked at me, cocked your head to the side and said, "It's time for What's Up Weekly." It was four days since then when I said, "Okay, fine.  If I have to.  I guess."

If you know me at all, you know I've had excuses.  (Don't I always?)  Excuses like having to stay packed on ice 24/7 because of the rash on my horrible horrible leg, which spread to my other horrible leg, and then to both my horrible arms.  It was a bit defeating.  But let me back up and give you a rundown of the week.

Sunday: Father's Day! We went to church, then came home for lunch and presents.  I can tell you more about it tomorrow!  

Also - JUNI GOT A BUBBLE BATH.  I REPEAT: JUNI GOT A BUBBLE BATH.

Monday: Our air conditioner died the night before, so I called the service guy.  The same service guy who told us over the winter that we would need to replace our whole system to the tune of $10k even though it was working (mostly) fine.  Why did I call him again?  Because I want believe the best in people, I guess.  So he came out, looked at our air conditioner, told me it was shot, and he could get a $650 fan in that afternoon, as a placeholder for the brand new air conditioner I would need to order.  I told him I'd think about it, but we could live in the heat for a bit and I'd be passing on buying the fan.  He got super duper weird and awkward, and then told me he had sprayed a few things with WD-40 so it might seem like the air conditioner is working, but it actually isn't.  Then he left without making eye contact.  So far, it has seemed like the air conditioner is working well enough to keep our house cool like normal.  And that's really all I need it to seem like.  (I realize I'm making wild assumptions here, but I'm assuming he works on commission.  If and when the WD-40 wears out, we will be calling someone else.)

Tuesday: A friend came over and watched the kids so Todd and I could have a date night!  It had been a long time since we'd gone out - we had been able to go out for Valentine's Day, but I'm pretty sure that the time before that was before Christmas.  Yikes.  So we went to a local steak place, where we ate All the Food (um, my steak was 20 ounces.  I really mean All The Food).  Then we hit up Natural Grocers because they were running a 25% off EVERYTHANG sale, and nothing says Sexy Date Night like buying a bunch of pickles and raw chickens for pennies on the dollar.  

Unfortunately, my weird skin rash thing was aggravated by the jeans I was wearing.  My legs were like, "FABRIC? DENIM FABRIC? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?" And I was like, "Legs, they're called pants, and they're expected in public." And Legs were like, "OPPRESSION." And then they revolted and started itching so badly I cried in the van on the way home.

Wednesday: On my way up to the Amish, I called a friend who's a nurse and was like, "You have to help me.  I have this rash..." And then I told her the whole sad story, and promised to text her juicy shots of my gnarly legs when I got home.  (I repeat, "I WOULD TEXT HER WHEN I GOT HOME."  NO, I do not text and drive, ever, and neither should you!  It's illegal and dangerous and idiotic.  You are not good at it even though you think you are, and you will end up killing someone, and you are not so necessary to everyone's immediate iExistence that it's worth that kind of risk.  So knock it off.  Thus saith the Mom.)  She asked the doctor she works for, and I got an unofficial diagnosis: Poison Ivy.

Which is relieving in some ways - now I know what I'm dealing with (and why it keeps spreading) (and that it's not contagious) (and that it's not something worse) - but also concerning in other ways.  I could not for the life of me figure out where I would get poison ivy, since I was only in my driveway.  However, since then, I have examined my yard and found COPIOUS amounts of it.  The real question is how I didn't catch it sooner.  So now I'm depressed and overwhelmed and scared to go outside or let the kids play outside.

Thursday I took Penelope and Finneas to pick out goldfish.  Penelope needed to try again after we'd killed three fish in a row a couple months ago, and Finneas was getting Callista a fish as a birthday present.  I had high hopes - I had disinfected every last bit of the tank and its contents, I bought a new filter... things were going to be different this time.  They had to be different this time.  But I think you can see where this is going.

Unfortunately, things did not go as planned.  I will come clean about our most recent fish massacre later this week.  (The guilt.  Oh, the guilt.)

And other than that, basically all I was capable of last week was rotating between an ice-packed existence on the couch, and taking tub baths in cold water.  And then back to the couch once my ice packs had refrozen.  I'm sure you're jealous, imagining me sweating away in an 85-degree house and nursing a raging case of poison ivy.  It's a luxe life I do lead.  

how our family has faced COVID and the quarantine.

Someone asked the other day what Coronavirus and the quarantine have looked like for us, so I thought I'd share!

It has been weird for a family of our size (though I know it has been weird for everyone).  I have made a conscious decision not to 'panic-buy,' not to stock up on things because I'm afraid I won't be able to find them later.  When I grocery shop every three weeks, I have made a point to only purchase what we will use in the next three weeks.  I did, at one point, ask my mom to sew us some cloth wipes in case we would get low on toilet paper and not be able to find any, but I'm not kidding you when I say that we are still working our way through TP I had purchased prior to all the chaos.  Our TP supply has been like the widow's oil, and is it weird to say I think it's been supernatural provision?

My goal through all of this has been to remain positive, optimistic, and level-headed.  It has not been easy every step of the way, and there are still many days where I am tempted to worry about what the future holds after all of this dies down.  And tangibly speaking, there was a stretch at the beginning during which it was genuinely stressful to find enough food for our family's basic needs.  Either stores were sold out of items, or were limiting certain things.  (Two cans of tuna per customer?! My kids eat six cans in a single lunch.)  When it was possible to find the things I needed in the quantity I needed, I felt self-conscious about how much I was buying.  Our normal grocery trip looks staggering to outsiders, and I didn't want to look like I was afraid, or was taking more than my share.  But God was faithful through all of that - either I was able to find what we needed, we were able to stretch or limit what we were using, or friends were so kind to gift us things they were able to find.  We were given things like commercial-sized cans of tuna, bags of potatoes, baby wipes, rice, and toiletries.  God has been really good to us.

Currently, there is no longer an issue with finding resources.  The main concern most people seem to have at this point regards masking, not hoarding.  Since we have chosen not to mask (not that we really ever go anywhere anyway), this makes things much simpler for us than they were at the beginning. 

It has been a weird time for the kids.  If it wasn't for our trips to the Amish each week, they would not have left the house for the last three months.  That has been wearing on them.  They beg to just go to the grocery store with Todd or me, but many of our local places still have restrictions on the number of people allowed per cart.  They also are trying to make sense of a lot of the fear they sense around them.  But all things considered, they have been absolute champs about it all.  We are trying to teach them with our words and our example that we are choosing not to live in fear, and that we can be a blessing to others by remaining levelheaded.

We have received so many gifts through all of it, though, and that's what I really want to remember about this time.  Todd has been working from home since mid-March, and it has been a fantastic transition.  We are praying this can be a permanent option.  He was also scheduled to have to spend a work week in Tennessee without us this summer, but his company has arranged for all of his 'on-location' meetings to be held via Zoom, and he gets to do them from home instead.  While we have missed our friends and family through all of this, we also really reveled in the slower pace of life we were given.  I'm actually not really ready to give that part up!

We took so many family walks, especially at the beginning!

At the end of the day, what all do I believe about this time in history?  I believe the virus is definitely very dangerous for some, but not all.  I think that much of our quickness to take action in shutting things down on the front end was due to some founded caution, but also a fear of the unknown, and I do think it was overblown.  I think the media coverage and CDC reporting of numbers has been suspect, and has not promoted levelheaded assessment by Americans of their true risk.  

I think the social consequences of all of this - the increasing trend of young school children watching an alarming rate of pornography during their many unsupervised hours at home, for instance, or the absolute travesty of blanket-isolating the elderly from human contact, even when we know that that itself puts people at severe risk of illness and death (and then denying them the dignity of a funeral), or the increase in depression and suicides, or the rampant job loss among the financially vulnerable - are a bit enraging, to be honest, and I think that to care about health outcomes of individuals is more multidimensional than the rhetoric about social distancing and masking would lead you to believe.  

I think fast-tracking and potentially mandating a vaccine, using fetal cell lines and without doing adequate safety testing, is a huge mistake with both moral and societal considerations.

So overall, I'm about as skeptical of all of this as an optimist can be.  I'm a recovering cynic, and by God's grace I won't allow myself to lapse over something like this, but I do find it all very sobering.

Nothing a couple smiling cuties can't fix, though.

I am not basing my opinions on the unfounded hope that it's not really spreading, or that I'm unlikely to get it.  At this point, it seems inevitable that most of us will contract it.  I will probably contract it at some point, statistically speaking, and I am not afraid.  The reality is that COVID is a virus that is here to stay, and we have to make our peace with that.  Luckily for us, it has a 99.7% survival rate, so theoretically we should be able to move forward whenever we're ready to face that good news head on.

All that to say, though, I am not responsible for the whole world.  I am responsible for my little tiny corner of the world.  And in this corner, the same things are true in any circumstance that might come our way: we fight for joy here.  We fight for optimism.  We seek faithfulness and obedience and love.  We are basking in the undeserved favor and countenance of God, even when things out there get hard.  And I will choose, every day, to make sure these are the Truest things, to keep them in front of my eyes and at the forefront of my mind.  That's my duty and my joy.

handyland.

So, in case you didn't hear me shouting it from the rooftops last week, I'll say it again: "I BUILT A THING!  WITH MY OWN TWO HANDS! (With my own, with my own, two hands...)"

World, meet my compost bin.  Compost bin, meet the World.

But let me back up and tell you how I got here.  First, I had to learn how to use a circular saw because, while I had enough forethought to actually borrow one from a friend instead of relying on my power of 'folding, pressing, and ripping carefully along the fold' like a boss, I didn't actually have the forethought to ask her how to actually use it.  So I found myself down the rabbit hole of YouTube power tool reviews.  (It turns out, most people making videos assume you want to know how one brand of circular saw compares to other brands; most people don't assume you're the kind of noob who can't even figure out how to turn one on, much less operate it without losing a finger.)

After that hurdle was jumped, I got into the dicey world of "casual measurements."  Could I have been more precise?  Absolutely I could.  But it turns out I'm a 'good enough is good enough' kind of gal when it comes to building glorified trash bins.  (Plus, it didn't help that I lost the link to the compost bin tutorial early on in my project and had to just "best guess" my way through assembly.)  Spoiler: I didn't "best guess" well enough, and I cut all the little corner brace pieces the wrong size.  But it ended up being okay.  Ish.

Then I got into "drilling without a vice clamp" and also "foregoing using a level": that stage in the process in which I propped stuff up on the bumper of the Kraken to approximate a 90-degree angle, like a real pro, and hoped for the best.  Penelope helped me with this stage.

And, lest I fool you into thinking this was a linear, time-efficient process, the above steps took me five days.  No major hang ups beyond the aforementioned Corner Shorty Bits, and also some Wood Splittage since I didn't take the time to drill pilot holes.  (What is this, Tuck Everlasting?  I don't have that kind of time.)

Anyway.  I finished it.  I did it!  And it looks like a compost bin!  A not-precisely-measured, not-exactly-level compost bin!  I may or may not have placed it in the dead center of the front yard (see top photo) while I waited for Todd to help me carry it to the back, and it may or may not have been for the semi-conscious desire to brag to the neighborhood that I am, in fact, semi-handy.  (Or, at least, not entirely not-handy.)

It is still not totally finished - I'm still working on attaching chicken wire to the inside to keep the critters out, and I need to pick up some tin snips to cut through it easily and quickly before that job is totally wrapped up.  But I'd say I have about 15 minutes left of actual work to do on it.  And I consider that a win!

Unfortunately, I didn't know that my driveway is apparently infested with some kind of devil bug, and I got BIT TO HELL.  It started as bites, and then morphed into a scaly, raised, swollen, bleeding welts, and then my system got completely overloaded by the histamines and I started breaking out in hives on top of it all.  It has spread up both legs, both arms, onto my hands and feet, and across my chest, in varying degrees.

This is partway through the week, and it progressed from here.  What you can't see in this photo are all the hives covering my entire shin, or the welt on the back of my thigh that's about the diameter of a Solo cup at its widest point.  Also, my legs are hairy because I couldn't bring myself to shave over this mess.

This started last Tuesday when I was assembling the compost bin, and has gotten progressively worse each day.  I currently spend much of my day wrapped in ice packs, as that is the only thing that consistently alleviates the itching and pain.  I have tried Benadryl pills, Benadryl cream, hydrocortisone, aloe vera gel, benzocaine spray, Vitamin E oil, Vitamin C serum, plantain salve, oatmeal/baking soda baths, high dose oral vitamin C therapy, homeopathic pellets for bug bites and hives and poison ivy, and nothing has cut it.  I'm still in major agony.  

I have scratched so hard I have bruises all over myself, and I'm worried the deepest parts of the welts may end up permanently scarring.

BUT.  At least I have a fancy wooden bin in which to throw away my coffee grounds.  Totally worth it... right?  (Please humor me and tell me it's worth it.)  

"And Dear Lord Baby Jesus, we hope you can use your Baby Jesus powers to heal him and his horrible leg.  It smells terrible and the dogs are always bothering with it."  - Ricky Bobby

Amen.

what's up weekly.

Hello, all!  I know I left you hanging last week - "Will she build the compost bin?" and, "Will she watch Clueless seventy-bajillion times?" - and I'm here to tell you, "Yes," and "Almost."

See, I actually did start the compost bin project last Friday, though I stretched it out over the course of many days and it's still not technically done.  But start I did!  

I'll tell you more about it on Monday.  (And before you go calling shenanigans, because I almost never follow through on promises like that, I've already written the post, so you can wait all weekend with bated breath.  You're welcome.)

In other news: 

Yard and Garden: This week I'm gearing up to put down some Weed and Feed.  Because I'm a grownup who now cares about her grass.  I know, I'm just as shocked as you are.  Also, my hydrangeas are coming in Super Pink, and I would like Moderately Purple, so I'll be researching how to adjust the soil ph to get them to cooperate.  Also, we're hoping to borrow a neighbor's ladder so that Todd can clean out the gutters for the first time in our four years of residence here.  Things are growing in them; I think it's time.

Penelope's zinnias are coming in strong, and we're still hoping to get her cut flower business off the ground in July.  The (very, very) few vegetables I have growing in the garden are doing well, even though I never water them - I even have a few green tomatoes already, if you can believe that.  I'm growing a few tomato plants in buckets this year, and it has made a huge difference.  I have three in buckets, and one in the ground, and the one in the ground is much, much smaller and more scraggly looking.  I guess I'll be growing all of them in buckets from here on out.  My herbs (basil, parsley, lavender, rosemary) and strawberries are doing the best of anything else; my beans look like they got kicked off the back of an ugly-truck.  I have learned about myself that I am a disinterested gardener, especially now that I have a bunch of kids and easy access to cheap organic produce up at the Amish. So why bother growing my own?  (Ahem, I say that, and then I look around at the cultural moment and think we should probably just homestead since society is on the verge of collapse and all.  So I feel conflicted.)

Lastly, the potted orange tree that I bought at a moving sale for $5 nine years ago grew its first fully-ripened orange!  It has grown tiny little green oranges before, but they always fall off the tree before doing much of anything.  Granted, it is still outrageously small, but it's at least recognizable as an orange.

It reminds me of that episode of Friends in which Chandler's roommate Eddy dehydrates a canteloup and they use it as a foosball. 

Diet and Exercise: very little exercise has happened recently.   But some has!  (Especially after I see photos of the backs of my arms and think, 'who have I become?!'  They look like the arms that ate my former arms.  So then I double down on my efforts.)  I've been sticking close to Trim Healthy Mama for the most part, with the exception of eating some microwave popcorn on the weekends, but I think I'll have to ditch that habit and go 100% on plan, because my weight isn't budging.  I'm feeling a bit discouraged.

Church: We're back to services in the building, which is fantastic, but it still feels super weird.  And with no childcare, I'm pretty sure we're going to have to watch from home on the weeks Todd preaches - the little kids have been squirrelly in service and I don't think I'll be able to wrangle them myself.

Clueless: I am currently in the middle of my third watch-through since it came back to Netflix.  When I love, I love hard.  And I also have questionable taste in teen movies; I hope that's not a friendship dealbreaker.

Kids: The other day on our walk, Lolo fell on her head and got seriously banged up.  She got a goose egg, and a bruise, and road rash, and a puncture wound, all in one fell swoop.  And it would not stop bleeding.  After changing out numerous bandaids over the course of about five hours, Todd finally ran to the store and got butterfly bandages and got her all squared away.  It's been a week now, and it's starting to look better.

Never one to be left out of a photo sesh, Callista insisted on having her photo taken after Laurelai.  Here is her chosen pose.

And one night this week, we discovered a whole flock of hot air balloons flying over our neighborhood!

COVID: Things seem like they finally are starting back into normal human rhythms.  It has been a long stretch, and I know we still have a long way to go before people are able to totally move forward mentally, but there have been some really encouraging small steps happening.  We've seen a lot more friends over the course of the last few weeks, I've even been able to get together with my 'mentor mom,' and people are seeming more chill out in public.  (I haven't seen "Apocalypse Face" on anyone recently.)  The governor opened up the state as of Monday, so individual communities are starting to gauge what's appropriate for them to get back to running.  Our library has now allowed patrons to enter, which is kind of a win, but it means they stopped allowing a walk-up option for curbside pickup.  I can't fit the Kraken in their drive-up spaces, and they're requiring masks to actually enter the building, so I'm not exactly sure how I'll navigate picking up my holds.  I may just have to wait a bit longer before checking more stuff out.

One of you asked recently what all of this has looked like for a family of our size, and I have a blog post set to go next week detailing it further.

And lastly, I just need to post how adorable my little self-proclaimed Meter Maid is:

And that's the news!  Have a happy weekend, y'all!

happy toddsday, and a reminder about the times.

Because right now this world could use more photos of genuinely happy people, I would like to take this opportunity to dedicate this Tuesday to Todd, who works tirelessly and stays optimistic and loves us all so well.

Remember, y'all.  We know how the story ends: good wins.  It is currently winning, even when it is hard to see sometimes.  Perfection will come.  And in the meantime, God commands us to a life of joy, of hope, of optimism.  He commands us to live our small lives well.  To be faithful and obedient in our own small spheres, and to trust him to take care of the ripple effect.

Friend.  If you only truly hear one thing today, let it be this:  You are not big enough to save the world - thank the good Lord that God is on the throne.  You do not have to carry a burden that is too big for you, and you do not have to be anxious.  

Here is your job: look at the thing in front of you today, the small thing you're being asked to be faithful in, and do that thing.  Be obedient today in how you spend your time, how you speak to your kids, how you love your husband, how you pursue the human-scale acts of righteousness you're called to in the Bible, and let that be enough for you.  This is not cowardice, it is not denial.  This is courageous faithfulness, and it truly is enough to change the world when it's handed over to God.

And if you are able to hear one more thing today, let it be this: maybe get off your phone.  Lift your eyes away from the hopelessness and go love on your people well.  It may not seem like you're doing much, but the reality is that drowning yourself in the news cycle and the endless threads on social media are not actually doing anything at all.  So go actively act in love, in the strength of the Holy Spirit, rather than drown passively in hopelessness.

I have been meditating on Psalm 16 for the last week or so, as a comfort and a teacher, and verse eight comes to mind: "I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken."  I am purposing to set the Lord before me more often, and setting my phone before me less often.  And I am trusting that this is the only way to not feel shaken.

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;

you hold my lot.

The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; 

indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

...

You make known to me the path of life; 

in your presence there is fullness of joy;

at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

what's up weekly.

Well, it's Friday again somehow.  Now that the weather has warmed up, it seems like the time just flies.  Plus, it seems like everyone is ready to go back to normal summer life - I got to hang out with so many people this week, and have phone chats with friends in other parts of the country, AND other countries!  Dang, I live a celebrity lifestyle.  (Just call me Fergie Ferg.  Everyone else does.)

Last Friday, Atticus turned eleven and a half! (Yes, we celebrate half-birthdays around here; we never pass up an opportunity to party.)  We celebrated by going for a walk and letting him push the stroller up The Hill Difficulty, like the man that he is.  (Before you go whistleblowing, I would just like to clarify he requested the responsibility.  Because that's what men do.)

In the evening, we had a member's meeting at church, and later Todd and I watched Mama Mia.  As always with movies these days, it was mostly good with some uncomfortable moments.  But the best part of Friday night was DISCOVERING CLUELESS IS BACK ON NETFLIX!  

via GIPHY

Summer is about to get ignored in the name of watching Clueless on repeat until my brain turns to mush.  I literally can't even wait.  

This week was a grocery shopping week, which is always a good time.  It means we're about to have food for a while, so I tend to like it.  But beyond that, I enjoy heading to the grocery store by myself and having a little 'me' time.  However, because I shop at Aldi, I almost always make a new friend, and this week did not disappoint.  This week's new friend looked like an exact, perfect mashup of my mom and Todd's mom.  Talking to her was the craziest thing I have ever experienced.  Her mannerisms were just so Jacqi, and her face was just so Karen, but also she was 65 and British and has an indoor swimming pool in her house, so the comparison really just stopped at her looks and mannerisms.  ALDI IS FULL OF THE BEST PEOPLE.

On Wednesday, a friend offered to make the Amish trip for me, so the kids and I spent the morning picking up a Walmart order, and you know what that means: NEW PLAYING CARDS!  I have been in a 'playing one-handed Solitaire in my down-time' mood lately, and I was winning like all the time, and I thought it was just because I was really good and really lucky and really pretty, but then I discovered it was because my old deck of playing cards only had 44 cards in it.  Whoopsie.  Now I have a full deck, and I win way less often, which I think is Fortune's way of telling me to stop playing cards by myself and go outside for once.

So, I have been using my cards to play Go Fish with the kids.  (Inside, because Fortune doesn't get to tell me everything.)

And, beyond that, there is not a whole lot going on in these parts.  I have been doing some yardwork, which has been weirdly fun now that our (front) yard is no longer ugly.  (Our back is still the mangiest pile of mud and weeds, but who cares? I never have to look at it.)  I have also been putting off building a compost bin that I bought supplies for two weeks ago.  I will hopefully get to that today.

Rocco has been "reading".  The boys have been writing a book.  I have watched Clueless once-and-a-half so far. 

Well, I'm off to either build a compost bin or watch half of Clueless... I'll let you guess which.

kick your knees up, back in time. (all the way back to Easter.)

Never need a reason, never need a rhyme (except I have a reason and a rhyme: I haven't blogged about this yet but I want to, so there), kick your knees up, step in time.

Mary Poppins, anyone?  No?  (One of my favorite movies of all time - the costumes! the sets! the choreography! Oh my!)

Anyway, I guess we can move on to the actual point of this post.  Easter!  Yes, it happened.  It turns out that the magistrates can't keep Jesus in the tomb, even if they can keep his people out of the churches on that day.  So, because of all the Covid weirdness, we got to worship and celebrate at home by ourselves.  But celebrate we did - and with celebration comes food, and lots of it.  (Eat that, quarantine.  Literally.)

But kicking our knees up a bit more, and heading back a little further in time, first came Good Friday.  I mention this because I kind of outdid myself on the spread, and want to show off the photos.  I am learning, bit by bit, to try to bring beauty and not just food to the table.  I am discovering how to feed all parts of my humans - bodies and souls - with food and beauty and celebration and joy.  What a gift it is to be human.

Corona in Bloom!  Pretty flowers to go with my pretty blue plates.

Here's a practical tip for making a cheeseboard look pretty: wad the meat.  Don't just lay it out all flat and stacked; wad it up and plop it down.  Sounds gross, looks great.

So, then, fast forwarding to Easter Sunday, I knew that because we didn't have church, I would have more time and energy to really Feast It Up.  So, for breakfast, I made Breakfast Bread (which is fantastic, and I'll share the recipe sometime) and cinnamon rolls (the recipe for which I should also share sometime), and Todd read the first page of the Ascension devotional he wrote for the forty days between Easter and Ascension - the days Jesus was back on earth, teaching and interacting with people before he was taken up to heaven.  Easter is actually only the beginning of so many things!

After breakfast, I whipped up some little bird's nest rice krispy treats.  My mom would sometimes make these for my birthday when I was a kid, and they're just so spring-y! I thought the kids would think they were cute.  Essentially, you make rice krispy treats using chow mein noodles, and you shape them into little nests, and fill them with jelly beans.  (Starburst jelly beans, if you know what's good for you.)

We watched a sermon together as a family, and sang some worship songs.  Such a sweet time.

Then it was time to pull together a cheeseboard for lunch.  Another pretty spread!  I wanted Friday night's to be a little darker and more savory, and Easter Sunday's to be lighter and sweeter and more spring-y.  Not sure if that came across, but I thought it was pretty!

While everyone else was napping, I filled and hid some Easter eggs.  Unfortunately, I ran out of candy partway through filling them, so I ransacked the allowance quarters and filled the rest with money.  (I am a good and now-broke mom.)  The kids hunted for eggs while the ham heated and the cheesy potatoes cooked.

...and then we ate dinner.  At this point, I hardly cared if the food was pretty.  I was FULL UP.  But what a fun day of feasting and sweets and wine and CELEBRATION!  Easter is The Day.  It sets the pace for how we celebrate everything else in our lives - it is our ceiling.  And, as Todd often says, "you cultivate what you celebrate," and I want to cultivate in our kids a deep connection with the story of the Resurrection, and the joy that comes with that.  So feed them full, give them treats, worship with them, and shower them with eggs full of candy and money before sending them to bed in a food coma.  That's my new Easter motto.

And that was our Easter!