Easter

All dressed up for 8:30 church at St. Mark.  But, we had one thing we needed to do. . . .

Because it was a rainy day, the kids left a trail of carrots for the Easter Bunny from the front door to the basement where empty Easter eggs were left at the bottom of the stairs.

When everyone came home from church the kids' baskets were on the front porch.

Roman and Davis (above) and Libby and Brett (below) explore their baskets.

While most were at church, Aunt Debbie and I fixed breakfast and performed other duties like letting the Easter Bunny in the front door.

 The kids had left a note for the Easter Bunny to tell him to hide the eggs in the basement.  Davis added a sweet note "But Libby is scared."  The Easter Bunny wished them luck on the egg hunt and apologized for scaring Libby.

 The hunt was on.  In addition to having the hunt in the house, the eggs were color coded so the hunt was a little more fair.

 After the kids opened all of their eggs with Crazy Bands, candy, Legos and quarters, it was time for the Adult Hunt.

Our eggs were hidden upstairs and contained candy, coffee and lottery tickets.  Rebecca was the big winner with a ticket worth over $20!

Palm Sunday

 I took Anna and Eli to St. Mark's Jerusalem Festival on Palm Sunday.  We got there early so the kids could pet the animals.

 I'm not sure if there was a llama in Jerusalem, but there was at St. Mark.

A Kansas City Visit

We made a brief trip to Kansas City to celebrate Davis's 7th birthday.

His siblings and cousins could hardly wait to have a piece of that delicious looking brownie!

But, before that Brett tried to see if Louie remembered his "tricks".

And, Roman had a lot of Legos the cousins could build with.  Davis could hardly wait to build the Ninjago kit he got for his birthday.

 Although he asked for my help, he built almost all of it by himself.

Libby showed her usual sense of style while riding her stick unicorn. Libby:  I want my boo socks. Grandma:  BLUE socks?  Libby:  no, BOO! socks!  Just so you know the "Boo! Socks" were a deliberate choice to go with the rainbow dress.

I did help Brett with some homework after school---as you can see, he didn't mind the homework too much. . . .we did math and science dealing with the properties of matter. . . yes, third grade. . .properties of matter.

Warrens, and Provosts and Bears, Oh My!

Once upon a time there were two cousins:  Leah and Doug.  They were three years apart in age.

A few years later, two young ladies became friends while in college.  They would have never guessed, then, that someday they would be cousins when Christi married Doug, Leah's cousin.

 They were pretty excited when they were both expecting little girls within two months of each other.

 So, when Christi comes to town to visit her family, we get to see her and Ashleigh, too.  Ashleigh (above) is playing with her big cousin Eli.

 Grandma Susie and I got to visit, too.  I wish Grandma Jane (my sister) could have been there.

But, Jane will be happy to know that Ashleigh and Anna got along much better than our daughters did at that age. . .

Or, so I thought until I started looking for photo of Aunt Becky and Aunt Lynn fighting. . .

This is one time when my memory must not have been very accurate.  I thought they fought all of the time with Doug and Rachel getting along so well.

But, my photos of Rebecca and Lynn make them so sweet, while this photo of Doug and Rachel. . .

So, now I have to change my tune. . . Jane, Ashleigh and Anna got along great. . .like Rebecca and Lynn!

Handmade with a Purpose

 

Our daughter Rachel is selling art this month to support a language program for her son (our grandson) Brett.  Brett is one of many on the autism spectrum and has difficulty with language.  Rachel has found a language program which helps him, but his school doesn't have it at this time.  In honor of Autism Awareness month, she hopes to raise funds to purchase this program for Brett and the other children at the school with language problems  Her work can be found at her Etsy site.  

Her friend has organized several crafty people who will be donating portions of their sales to a favorite charity---Rachel's is a part of this.  Check out this site "Handmade with a Purpose"!