Easter, What a Glorious Day. . .

Wow - two posts within a week -some sort of record for the past couple of years!

Easter was a wonderful day - we had a delicious breakfast at church - we have such talented people, who are willing to serve such lovely occasions. The choir presentation, both Friday evening and Sunday morning, was so exciting. I always love it when we have combined services - I miss the feeling of the whole church family being together.

Easter Sunday afternoon is normally a time of family togetherness, eating, noisiness, and egg hunting. This year was totally different. Dad was recuperating from his first kidney stone surgery two weeks earlier - in fact, Sunday was the first day he felt like getting out of the house at all, and he was able to be at breakfast and worship service. But my sister had decided that he and Mom needed a less rambunctious celebration this year, so she took dinner to their house. This left us the opportunity celebrate with Dwight's family without having to try to maneuver, and perhaps have both sides all together, thus causing even more commotion.

Dwight's mom will be moving from Assisted Living to Health Care (nursing home) soon. She wanted to have a special celebration, so arrangements were made to go to the Sylvan Dale Guest Ranch for a wonderful buffet lunch and fun kids' activities. "So, what is your favorite food?", you ask? "Anything I don't have to cook!"

It was a glorious day - the food was fabulous, the sunshine was sparkling off the Big Thompson River as it flowed through the ranch. After lunch we headed with the kiddoes for the rest of the fun. Unfortunately, Little Miss Emma had a really bad cold that day, so she and Kristen not only missed the wonderful Easter celebration at church, but the fun in the afternoon.

Katie was so good at carrying her plate and picking out her own food.

Amazing how grown up Miss Hayley is looking these days!

First a ride on "pretend" horses

There was an Easter Egg hunt, but I didn't get any pictures - in fact, they didn't find any eggs! But the Easter bunny gave them some candy anyway.

Then - on to a nice surprise - rides on REAL horses! I was amazed at Katie's excitement over getting up on that big horse - and Livi loved it, too. Hayley, surprisingly, didn't want to go. It was very interesting to watch Katie without her little connected-at-the-hip sidekick, exerting her independence a bit more than normal.

Katie was even do the "rodeo queen" wave, which made me very nervous, as she held on to the saddle with only one hand!








Then Great Grandma had some snuggle time with her great grand girls.

As one of our songs from the musical said, "Oh, What a Glorious Day. . . "

Some Random Catching Up

Springtime in the Rockies - kind of a joke, kind of bi-polar, kind of a hoax. Every year I hope it will really be warm and beautiful, but every year the flowers faithfully come back, the birds sing, but the weather is very iffy. We usually get snow in March sometime, but this time it was April 13 -- the evening of the 12th, we were treated to a lovely, soaking rain, badly needed. In the morning - we got up to this.

By late afternoon it was down to this --

The week before, we were fortunate to have a nice day in between wind and rain and cold, just enough time for us to watch this going on -- necessary because of a long-forgotten hail storm.

The littles enjoyed the day as we sat and watched the workers. They can make a game out of anything, using sticks, eating utensils, pieces of toast as toys.

The tulips enjoy the sun or the rain, and were beautiful this day, before the snow.




DC planted several dozen bulbs last fall, tulips and daffodils. We're anxiously awaiting the arrival of new colors and shapes. We were surprised by this unusual daffodil this week --

Last Saturday we were blessed with one of those sunny days, just in time for our church's annual Easter Marketplace. We go back to 33 A.D. and many people in our church spend their morning creating an opportunity for children and their parents from all over the neighborhood to visit in a village reminiscent of Jesus' time.

They also set up a wonderful egg hunt in the gym for the children, who can get as many of the 4,000 plastic eggs, filled with a treat or toy, and enjoy opening them and recycling the eggs for next year (if they remember to turn them in - ours brought home quite a few this year). For some reason Emma found it "scawy, Grandma", while her sister Katie enjoyed the hunt.

Some random shots --

The twins being "princesses" in their Winnie the Pooh blankets --



Helping Grandma cook ---



Katie's first official drawing - ghosts! Kinda pale, but hope you can see them.



On a totally different note, I want to share Care Bear's poem, which her teacher has entered into a contest.


What My Family Means to Me

My family is special,
They take care of me!
If my family was not here,
There would not be me!
My family helps e with things that are hard,
My family for sure makes me feel like a superstar!
They help me, when I am sad,
They make sure that I am glad!

My brother and sisters, without them,
I would not really have any true friend!

Without my brother bothering me,
It would not be fun!

When I have homework and I cannot do it,
My mom would help me get it done!

When I am bored and I have nobody to play with,
My sister would step up and do it!

My baby sisters are so cute,
And when I am bummed,
They're the ones I look to.

My bigger brother,
The one who is funny
When I want to laugh,
I want Anthony!

Clearly, without my family,
There would be no happy times!

I find it very interesting that she wrote so much about her half brother, whom she rarely sees.

Monday Musings

Can you believe it?? 29 pounds and 33.25 inches in 12 weeks. I never would have believed it when I began this journey in early January. The first picture was taken the second Saturday (after the first 7 pounds went away), the second one was taken a week ago.

I have 12 more pounds to my goal, and if the pace continues these next 6 weeks as it has the past 12, I will reach my goal during Phase III. The program, as I have mentioned before, is called PRISM. It is usually done through a church, but you can do it by yourself with an accountability partner. We have a lesson to read each day, questions to answer about our personal journeys, and a very informative DVD at each meeting.

I have avoided meetings and fees for years, ever since I "backslid" from my Weight Watchers success. I tried to do it on my own, confident that I could. I have never believed in eliminating a food group from my diet. But it is amazing to me how I was able to eliminate sugar and white flower without batting an eye, because they are things that we not only don't need, but are really not good for us. It was also great to meet each week and share our successes and challenges with friends and my sister.

Of course, working out 5 days a week for at least 45 minutes has helped as well, not to mention the water consumption I have increased. Suffice it to say, I am very happy and excited. I look forward to actually maintaining this time! When your 5-year-old grandgirl makes a comment on your shrinking figure, you know it's good!

The spiritual aspect of this journey has been a huge plus. I have enjoyed the scriptures the writers of the program have found to encourage us as we go.

I Timothy 4:15-16 - "Put these abilities to work; throw yourself into your tasks so that everyone may notice your improvement and progress. Keep a close watch on all you do and think. Stay true to what is right and God will bless you and use you to help others." (The Living Bible).

Proverbs 4:25-27 - "Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you. Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm. Do not swerve to the right or the left . . . " (NIV).

Habakkuk 2:3 - "But these things I plan won't happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, do not despair, for these things will surely come to pass. Just be patient! They will not be overdue a single day!" (TLB

Easter was wonderful. The whole week. Our new pastor is a wonderful preacher, and he and his wife are a great musical team. Over 400 people came through our 8th annual Easter Marketplace, and the weather even halfway cooperated. The twins didn't enjoy the Marketplace - too many people and too much confusion. I ended up bringing them home with me so the big girls could have fun with Kristen. Thus, no pictures.

But earlier in the week we had a fun egg hunt in our back yard, just the girls and me. They had their annual egg coloring event with Great Aunt G and brought the eggs over to my house - it was spring break, so I had all 4 of them on Tuesday and Thursday. I was impressed with the egg-hiding abilities of both Feisty and Care Bear. (Note the residual snow piles?)




The flowers are finally showing their beautiful faces - I'm still waiting for the first daffodil.







I bought myself a bouquet of roses - just couldn't resist. I enjoyed them very much --






Saturday night, since I always have the girls, I got to be the Easter Bunny for the first time in awhile. The girls really got into it, leaving him (her?) notes and gifts. Care Bear has the amazing ability to write backwards - don't know what that will do for her along the way, but it is something I sure never thought of doing!







I had not experienced the early morning excitement of kids when they wake up to their baskets full of goodies in a very long time - I was half asleep, but getting a real kick out of their animated 6:00 a.m. conversation. We got to church for breakfast by 8:00 - nothing short of amazing! Here's the only picture I got - not good, but cute nevertheless.



As I mentioned in the previous post, Kristen got sick again during the night - it has been a very rough year for her (and all of us as a result). We treasure and count on your prayers.

Easter Dress Parade

Easter is such a special time in the Christian's life. In my home growing up, we had fun with eggs and hunts and chocolate candy in our baskets. It was like Christmas, though, in that we knew there were no such things as Santa or the Easter bunny. We were focused on Jesus' birth, death, and resurrection.

I've mentioned before that we were a large family serving small churches with smaller salaries. But somehow we always managed to get new clothes for Easter. I have a very fond memory of getting up very early on Easter Sunday morning to go to the sunrise service - which was always held inside the church instead of our watching the sun actually rise. My sis and I always wore our Easter dresses from the year before to that service, then went home and changed into our spanking new clothes.

It was fun finding all of these pictures chronicling our Easter parade of dresses.

This was in the yard of our tiny little house in Batesville, Arkansas. I'm quite certain Mom made these little organdy dresses for us. I think they were pale blue.

We loved these circle skirt dresses - taken on the front steps of our first house in Heber Springs, Arkansas.




I sure wish these were colored pictures!

I loved these red and white striped "store-bought" taffeta dresses, complete with flower bands on our heads, and straw bags.

Being the pastor's kids had some perks - this particular year a lady in our church had a new fancy sewing machine that she wanted to try out on us. She bought us this gorgeous fabric and embellished the dresses with all sorts of fancy stitching. This picture was taken at my youngest brother's dedication service.

The next year somebody else offered to make our dresses. Based on the year before, we were excited. Unfortunately, these didn't turn out quite so well. For one thing she (and I'm glad I don't remember who it was) never came over to fit us. She apparently guestimated our sizes. When the dresses arrived, we were not excited about the color (a dark turquoise), the fabric, the big bows, or the fact that the dresses had darts when none were needed yet! But of course we had to wear them. Can you tell by our faces how thrilled we were??

Mom made these "walking suits" this year. Mine was lavender plaid and I was pleased with it. Don't you love the straw purse? And the pillbox hat (ala Jackie Kennedy) and the gloves --

This year our dresses were much simpler than other years - this one was pale yellow - gloves, but no hat. Much more casual.

I really had a thing for lavender, it seems. I loved this dress, matching hat and shoes - wish you could see them.




This was fondly (I think) called my "Abe Lincoln" look by my brothers. I was 5'10" tall, but thought nothing of wearing 3-inch spikes with pointed toes. The shoes to this outfit were too small, but I bought them because they were red, white, and blue and I had to have them to complete the ensemble. I suffered, but thought it was worth it! Not to mention the 6-inch-high hat - oh, my goodness - I really thought I was something! I'm not really that much taller than everyone - the angle is really strange - but I was really tall and didn't care. I wonder where I got the money to put together this outfit.

That was the last Easter picture in my mom's album - I enjoyed my trip down Easter memory lane very much. I hope you did, too!