Today

My day today was not unusual. I'm sure most parents have the same things happen at their homes. I just happened to record A FEW of the happenings around our house today. You may be able to see why I don't have time to read...or shower.

I heard Luke making Grant laugh hysterically so I grabbed the camera because I wanted to get video of the baby laughing. This is what I found:



Have you ever tried to clean up wet Rice Krispies? It ain't fun.

On a very UNusual whim, I decided to make some cookies from scratch. Luke had a blast helping me. As you can imagine, there were lots of sticky bowls and cookie sheets to clean up. This is what Luke was doing as I took care of the cookie mess:



I didn't get any pictures of the Spaghettios that were, for some reason, dumped in the toilet and sink, a little gift from Jackson, I suppose. They left a nice ring around the freshly scrubbed sink. I also didn't want to annoy my husband as he cleaned up THREE separate soda spills within 30 minutes. (Perhaps, he now knows that water is not only served for it's health benefits.) Here is one more, just for fun. At least this was easy to clean up:



Thank goodness I got my taxes done yesterday. If you feel badly because I don't call you to shoot the breeze enough, maybe now you will forgive me?

Easter, smeaster...

I have always struggled with finding a balance between teaching my kids the real reason that we celebrate specific holidays and the "fun" part of holidays. Mostly, I don't think there is anything wrong with allowing a child to believe in Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny. I think there is something so magical about the first years of one's life that allow innocence and sweet minds to believe. (Jackson's preschool teacher used to leave the room, put on a cape and a crown and turn into Letter King. The first few days the kids would point and say, "That is Miss Joan." Letter King would respond with, "If you don't believe in Letter King, Letter King won't believe in you." After a few days, the kids would go crazy and have so much fun "believing" in Letter King. And, they did, ALL YEAR LONG.) This Easter, however, the idea of the Easter Bunny just got on my friggin' nerves.

Maybe it was because one of Jackson's friends told Jackson that he was going to ask the Easter Bunny for a very specific (and very expensive) toy. This prompted this letter to the Rabbit himself:



Now, in my day (imagine my cane pointing to you and my false teeth chattering here) the Bunny brought treats and eggs and MAYbe some chalk or bubbles. Certainly nothing expensive. Definitely nothing that was specifically asked for. (The Rabbit did leave a note in return to remind Jackson that "the Easter Bunny Code specifically forbade him from bringing children lots of gifts so this year was a one time exception." And, no, the bunny does not know how old he is.)

Maybe my irritation this year was finding myself at Toys'R'Us when I would have rather been in bed, paying WAY too much money for toys and making the salesperson search through the boxes in the back after I couldn't find the "blue light saber that lights up and makes crashing noises".

MAYbe it was Googling "religious significance of the Easter Bunny" and finding out that there is none. (Seriously, at least Santa came from a nice guy who gave kids gifts and gifts were brought to the baby Jesus.) And, it probably shouldn't have taken me 31 years to wonder why the HIZZY a MAMMAL is bringing EGGS. (FINE! 36 years.)

MAYbe it was the blessing that Jackson gave over the food at Easter dinner which included thanking the Big Guy for the "Easter Bunny and Easter eggs and Easter candy". Jesus got an honorable mention at the very end of the blessing after I ASKED IF HE COULD BE INCLUDED.

Now, I thought we were doing pretty well with making sure our kids recognized why we celebrate Easter. Each year, we place a large picture of the Savior on the cross on our dining room table. It sits there for days and then, on Easter morning, we change the picture to one of the Savior appearing to Mary outside of the Tomb. Saturday night, we sat and talked about the events that happened during the very special week, so long ago. We even talked about spring and rebirth and watched a video about the Atonement. And, after all of this, Jesus STILL got only an honorable mention at the very end of the blessing after I ASKED IF HE COULD BE INCLUDED.

The final straw was seeing this:





The picture of the Resurrected Savior Jesus Christ surrounded by all of this, well, crap. Notice that the kids even got TWO EASTER BASKETS because they have some very thoughtful and generous Grandparents. (Feel free to ignore all of the tax papers behind the picture. This is another reason for my annoyance and for why you shouldn't expect another post until the 16th, at least.)

And, so, I ask you to please share with me how you make Easter a special and sacred holiday amongst all of the "fun". A couple of things that I have thought of for next year are to do the baskets and egg hunts on Saturday and keep Easter Sunday more reverent. And, to share the message of Jesus Christ's atonement. (Our neighbor's helped us out by giving us some dye tablets because our box was missing them. They asked the boys to color an egg for each of them. So, we put the eggs in a basket and added some verses from Luke. Our Lukie had the most adorable expression on his face as we crossed the street to give them the basket. He carried it very carefully the whole way and seemed so proud.) Doing things for other people is a great way to celebrate.

The fact that my husband and I cannot take a nap at the same time because of this



is not helping Easter matters for future years, either.

And, here the boys show off their loot.