How It Went

First of all, please excuse my pictures.  We have a decent camera and it takes decent pictures outside and as long as no one is moving.  An Easter morning at our house does not meet either of these requirements and therefore the pictures are usually of pretty poor quality.  But it is the memory that counts, so I post them here.

We finished our Countdown to Easter with mixed success.  

Successes
The older boys actually learned most of the words to the two songs we worked on all week.
They seemed to have a better idea of the general events leading up to the crucification and resurrection.
They had fun with most of the activities and we spent a lot of good family time together.

On the other hand
(See previous post on how the first few days went)
On Saturday night we did an eternal life scavenger hunt (note to self:  Ben is really very good at those even with his limited understanding) which was funny, but the spiritual part was totally over all the boys' heads.
Our grand finale on Sunday of Christ-centered activities went out with a fizzle rather than a bang.  Mostly because of the Easter Bunny/eggs/candy (which we will do on a different day next year) and being very busy that morning preparing food and leaving for church early for choir practice.  Just need some good time management there.
We gained some insight on Josh's perception of happiness, which I will talk about later.

In any case, we'll just keep trying and refining the process and hope that at some point something sinks in.  Sad to say, but with three active boys I feel that way about family prayer, scripture study and family home evening, too.   There is a quote by M. Russell Ballard that I have hanging on the wall in our bedroom: "Children's minds are like banks - whatever you put in, you get back 10 years later with interest."  I try to remind myself of this frequently in the face of seemingly futile attempts to teach our children things like manners, Gospel principles or the necessity of washing their hands after using the bathroom.

Here is this year's loot.  Each boy got a little car, bubble wand, play-doh activity book and blue peeps.  The coloring books and sticker book went in the backpack for sacrament meeting entertainment.  The cars joined the legions of cars we already own and love.  The play-doh replenished our play-doh stash.  The bubble wands kept the boys entertained for all of 10 minutes on Monday.  And the peeps were breakfast.

The boys thought it was all great.  I love this age!

Did I mention that the peeps were breakfast?  The boys inhaled them.  I tried one the night before and I think I am good for at least another year.  Peeps and anything from Taco Bell both fit in the same food category for me:  foods I try once a year to make sure they are as gross as I remember.

As the sugar high began to peak, we headed down to the basement for the egg hunt.

We filled the eggs with pennies this year.  This was Jason's idea - a family he spent Easter with one year put money of various amounts in the eggs.  We opted for pennies to discourage fights over money.  Josh was ecstatic to discover that he got $0.51 that morning.  I love this age!

Michael, on the other hand, started opening his eggs and said, "I hope there isn't money in all of them!"  This is when we got our first insight into the financial workings of Josh's mind.  He told Michael, "Michael!  If you get money then you will be rich!"  Okay.  But I didn't realize until later how important being rich is to Josh.  Later that morning, my Mom overheard this conversation between Josh and Ben:


Josh:  Ben, are you happy?
Ben:  No, I BEN!
Josh:  Ben, happy means you are rich!

Nice.

Nicely done.

That definitely doesn't make the "Top 10 Best Parenting Moments" list.

Dethroning the Easter Bunny

We are attempting a bloodless coup rather than outright revolution, but the effect will hopefully be the same.  This year, we are trying to make Easter more about Christ than candy and the Easter Bunny.

Which isn't to say that we think that the Easter Bunny is a bad thing.  But that Easter has always been a problematic holiday.  With the Easter Bunny, it is a holiday centered around eggs (to which Josh is allergic) and candy (mostly chocolate and to which Josh is also allergic).  So, we use plastic eggs filled with candy or toys, but I am not a huge fan of huge amounts of candy and there are only so many tiny toys that fit in eggs.

So, with Josh turning 7 this year, it seemed as good a time as ever to redirect our focus to Christ for this holiday season.  I got this great book, A Christ-Centered Easter by Janet and Joe Hales, and started my preparations.

That being said, one thing one should never, ever forget when dealing with three boys is that nothing will work out as planned.  I should probably get that framed and put up on my wall.

So, here's how it has gone so far:

Sunday:  We reenacted Christ's entering Jerusalem on a donkey (Jason) with palm leaves (tissue paper taped to popsicle sticks.  The boys loved riding on Jason's back and then chasing each other/whacking each other with the "palm leaves."

Monday:  We used 12 plastic eggs filled with different items (bread, nail, rope etc) to tell the story of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection.  When we got to the egg containing a piece of white cloth symbolic of the cloth Christ's body was wrapped in, Ben took it out of the egg and started patting his side with it.  Jason busted out laughing.  I did too when he let me in on the joke - Ben thought it was toilet paper!

Tuesday:  This is our busy night with t-ball and chorale, so we skipped that night as we ran out of time.

Wednesday:  We read some of the parables Jesus used to teach during his ministry.  In a stellar teaching moment, I used pirate coins to illustrate the story of the widow's mite.  We also used clay to make our own lamps like those of the 10 virgins.  Jason bought one during his time in the Middle East and the boys were very excited to see the "real" thing.

Thursday:  We read about the Last Supper and discussed the Passover and seder.  We had a plate of the foods for the kids to touch, smell and, for the more adventurous, taste.  I use the term "adventurous" liberally as I don't think that chicken, egg, lettuce, celery and nuts/raisin mix are really exotic foods, but mostly the kids just looked and touched.  Really, the kids were just excited to drink grape juice and eat crackers.

Friday:  We read about the crucifixion and watched the video Finding Faith in Christ.  Note to self:  Even church produced movies about religious topics should be previewed.  I think it was fine, but Josh looked very disturbed during some of the scenes.  We had a fun activity planned, but we had some issues at dinner that ended in some activities being cancelled for the evening.


So, it is a work in progress and half the time my plans don't work as planned.  We have two more days to go and years to work on the process, but hopefully each year we can teach and learn more about Christ with our children.

Harpers Ferry

Welcome to Spring Break!  We have the luxury of having Jason home during this week.  I would like to tell you that we have done lots of exciting things, been to exciting places or even finished a lot of projects around the house.  But if I did, I would be lying.

We did, however, take a drive up to Harpers Ferry on Wednesday.  It was one of those spur of the moment decisions that takes 2 hours to prep for with three boys, but we went and had a great time.

The key to a successful outing with the boys, I have discovered, is giving them the opportunity to get the wiggles out after a long drive and matching hats.

Just kidding about the hats.

But we did meander down to the Shenandoah River to skip rocks before heading into the town proper of Harpers Ferry.  The boys thought this was a great idea and even asked if this was what we drove 1 1/2 hours to do.

Once we got into Harpers Ferry, the older boys were actually pretty excited to go into the different buildings and learn about the history of the area.  Of course, it helps that the history of the area has a lot of battles, uprisings and guns.  You can't go wrong with an humongous artillery shell (or "big bullet" if you are 4 years old and see one of these on the ground).

Did I mention guns?  The boys were so excited by this one case of guns I am thinking that a visit to the NRA guns museum might be in order.

Having exhausted the boys' historical attention span, we went hiking up to Jefferson's Rock.  He claimed that the "scene is worth a voyage across the Atlantic."  I wouldn't go that far, but there is a lovely view.

Up a bit from Jefferson's Rock is the cemetery.  The graves date from the Civil War era to today.  Our description of what a cemetery is left quite an impression on Ben.  He spent most of our time there using both hands to point around him saying, "People died here!  People!  People died here!"  I asked him if that made him sad and he said, "Yes!"

And because I am very mature, I took this picture to share with everyone.

We made it down the hill and then over the river on a bridge next to the railroad tracks.  We were lucky enough to see 3 trains pass by.  It turns out that bridge is part of the Appalachian trail (which explains some the gear people were wearing crossing the bridge) and left us with an interesting choice:

As summer comes, Maine is tempting, but we opted to go home instead.

Updates

• I did plant the seeds (finally).  Only now I can't remember which seeds went into which pots.  I don't have high hopes that I will be able to distinguish a basil plant from a tomato plant, but with the help of my trusty friend, Google, I will hopefully get it figured out at some point.

• Ben had his 2 year appointment.  Our "husky" boy weighed in at the 33rd percentile - what a chunk!  It was not a happy experience for Ben.   When the doctor came in the room, Ben said, "Go AWAY!"  To which the doctor responded, "Well, at least we know that he can say two-word sentences!"

• The opening day for the t-ball season is this Saturday.  Josh has had two practices.  Michael has had ZERO.  Thank you very much April Showers.

• Virginia trees have really started to bloom and everywhere you look there are trees and bushes covered in lovely blossoms of varying shades of white and pink.  However, in the midst of all this beauty, there is some plant here in Virginia that stinks and for the life of me, I can't figure out which one.

• We still love our van.  We did, sadly, have to finally get VA plates.  It isn't that I was sentimentally attached to the UT ones - they just made it easier to find our van in a sea of silver Honda Odysseys in the parking lot.  A few weeks after we got our plates, I actually tried to get into someone else's silver Honda Odyssey and was perplexed as to why I couldn't get the remote to unlock it and open the doors.  To make matters worse, the owner of that car walked up with her kids in the middle of my confusion and I had to apologize and explain to my kids why we had to go find another van (ours this time) to go home.

Cherry Blossoms in Winter

Yesterday we went to DC to see the Cherry Blossoms.  It wasn't Winter, but it might as well have been.  We are well past the first "official" day of Spring, but Virginia seems not to consider herself constrained by such trivialities as conventional seasons.  It was cold!

But lovely.

Unfortunately, in a family of boys, beauty doesn't compensate for cold.  And my boys were very cold.  Even in their Winter coats.  It turned out to be a short trip.

But still lovely.

The First Dandelion of Spring

If you take care of a large lawn, this picture probably makes you cringe in anticipation of a summer battling it out with these weeds.

For me, dandelions are the "flowers" that my boys love to bring me.  This the flower my sweet oldest son brought me this afternoon - the first dandelion of Spring.

Notes to Self

• While the red table cloth is much prettier, it shows a million times more of the food crumbs than the ugly cream colored with sundry roosters table cloth.
• I should probably take a valium before grocery shopping with two boys.  It won't stop them from screaming, but it will stop me from caring.
• If one wants snow, the best way to get it is to put away one's winter clothes.
• My house is in a state of entropy.  I should probably stop fighting it.