Happy Easter!

Easter snuck itself right in between the kids' birthdays this year, so we've been really busy with all three. When Xander was on Spring Break the kids decorated a bunch of crosses to take to the nursing home, so we delivered those one day last week when Xander got off the bus.

On Friday we decorated a few eggs.


Saturday afternoon Jason picked up some overtime, so the kids and I went to my mom and step-dad's. In one evening we celebrated Easter, both kids' birthdays and my mom's birthday. The kids had an Easter egg hunt when we got there.


Presents after dinner...


...then Easter baskets...

Xander had to wear his Helmet Heroes while he opened his Easter basket at home Sunday morning.

Jordis was mostly concerned with eating.


I was amazed that there was no fighting about the boutinierre and hair clip that I made for the kids, and they actually stood together and both faced the camera. It really doesn't get much better than that, it's much more cooperation than I expected and we were even early to church.

After church Grandpa, Grammy, MawMaw, PawPaw and Aunt Mo came for brunch to celebrate Easter and both kids' birthdays.

It was like Christmas morning and we are now very thankful that we don't need to buy our kids a single outfit to wear this summer.



What a wonderful Easter it was.

....life is worth the living, just because He lives.

All Aboard!

Last week my friend Liz told me about our town's 4th annual Model Train and Railroad Christmas Show. It was yesterday from 10 am - 2 pm at the Columbus-Cleveland-Northern Railroad Building (which I didn't know existed), so after lunch we bundled up the kids and went to check it out.

I guess they normally give short train rides, but it was too cold for that yesterday due to the amount of time it takes to load and unload, so we didn't get to do that. The kids didn't know about it anyway since we've never been before, so they didn't know the difference.

First you had to enter into a small building that had a model train set up encompassing the whole room. Jordis of course liked the pink train the best.

Then we walked through some shelving full of Lionel train parts to get to an even bigger train display.

After that we went outside to an Amtrak train car that had two smaller displays set up inside. The caboose was last. Inside the kids got a free Cheryl's cookie and a really nice conductor hat.

After the train exhibit we took the kids to the nursing home to drop off their paintings. They spent a long time working on them and ended up making 30 total. I was hoping to make more than that but their interest was waning. Xander wasn't much for visiting but Jordis happily passed out a few paintings to some residents who were in the common area watching Holiday Inn. The rest of the paintings will be given to residents who aren't able to leave for the holidays. They're going to put them at their place settings for the big holiday meal.

Now the kids are just waiting for Santa. Luckily the presents they got on Sunday are holding them over in the meantime.

Christmas Philanthropy

I decided this year that the kids should start learning about philanthropy from an early age. Nothing overly complicated, but something they can understand.

Our church is making care packages for parishioners who are overseas in the military, and they requested that people have their kids make artwork. This was my first suggestion but Xander had trouble understanding who they were, how they'd get the pictures, do we know them, etc. etc. So, I thought maybe we could make some Christmas artwork to cheer up residents of a local nursing home. Then we could deliver them in person and the kids might grasp the process a little better if they saw the process from start to finish.

We got to work last Saturday. I drew lots of Christmas tree outlines onto construction paper.

Then I gave the kids some Christmas-colored paint and let them go to work.


As they were painting my mind started rambling and I thought maybe making all Christmas trees could be bad. What if there were Jewish residents? Or residents of no faith. Would I need Hannukah artwork? Snowmen? Would I offend some people with Christmas trees? (See, and we all wonder where Xander gets his stressful thought processes). I quickly remembered that there was a Christian nursing home here in town so I figured that we'd pick that one for our contribution. If they're in a Christian facility they should enjoy Christmas trees. Problem solved.

We got all of 10 trees painted Saturday. We even put glitter on them. Jordis did two more today while Xan was at school. She and visited the nursing home yesterday to see how many residents there are. I don't think we'll be able to make pictures for all of them, but they said they could break it down into smaller groups by choosing a particular unit or set of people, say those who don't get many visitors. So, whatever we end up making they'll happily take and distribute. They even had a box of toys for Jordis to play with while we visited, so I think she'll happy to return.

Ten down, a whole bunch to go!