easter week

In the New York City public schools, Spring Break always coincides with the week of Passover and Easter. Here are a few ways we celebrated the holiday during the boys' time off from school.

Easter Egg Hunt
A handful of the young mothers in our ward got the brilliant idea to organize an egg hunt for all of our kids, and under the leadership of a few, everyone worked together to pull it off. It was scheduled to happen two Saturdays before Easter in the hopes that we'd be able to find some park space that wasn't already scheduled for community egg hunts. That logic worked and the whole event, from the secluded park space to how many people were able to come to the absolutely beautiful weather, turned out to be fantastic.

 The bigger kids all lined up.

Matthew ready to gather eggs in a sectioned off area for the smallest kids.

Off they go!

Matthew was a little hesitant at first. In the beginning he preferred to point out eggs for someone else to pick up for him.

Our little friend Trevor was more than happy to oblige, and was responsible for about half of the eggs Matthew ended up with.

 Eventually, though, he took matters into his own hands.

And he liked it!

 Showing off their haul. Garrett decided to only search for green eggs, since his bucket was also green.

 Everyone came home happy.

Spring Break
Part of me was anxious for spring break to get here because it meant we could all relax our regular routine and I could squeeze in more rest. But the realistic side of me wasn't sure how I was going to handle all of them home when I was feeling so crummy and worn out. Fortunately we've somehow managed, with a lot of indoor and front stoop play.

 Ready or not, all aboard the Spring Break train!

 This is the way they let me rest on a gloomy, rainy morning.

Lounging in front of Frozen, which Blake picked up at Costco the weekend before to help us get through Spring Break. It worked like a charm.

 My urban children playing with planes, trains, and automobiles on the front stoop.

Family Home Evening
We thought it would be a good idea to talk about the meaning of Easter for Family Home Evening. When we asked the boys why we celebrate Easter, we got the expected answers of "The Easter Bunny!" "Coloring Easter eggs!" and "Candy!" Then we showed them the latest Mormon.org video, Because of Him, which helped to spur a nice conversation of what Easter is really about.




Easter Crafts
To spice up an otherwise fairly uneventful Easter Week, we did a few of our favorite traditional Easter crafts -- chocolate bird's nests and dying eggs.

 Yum!

 We only colored a dozen, which was about all I could handle. Everyone was satisfied and really excited to eat them for breakfast Easter morning.

Park Picnic
In anticipation of the approaching week off from school, some friends organized a casual picnic at a local playground. Unfortunately the day scheduled turned out to be bitterly cold. But it was still sunny, and we needed to get out, so we put on winter coats and went. This park was a little farther than I could handle walking, so we drove, and it was more than a little ironic that I had to scrape ice off our car before we could go to a picnic. We were all cold, but we still managed to have a good time with our friends.

At one point I momentarily lost track of Matthew, who had wandered away from the bench where we'd been sitting. It didn't take long to find him, though, off doing his favorite playground activity of climbing up the stairs and going down the slide, all by himself.

Easter Bunny
The Easter Bunny visited our house after bed on Saturday night, as Garrett was excited to report bright and way-too-early at my bedside on Sunday morning. He kept things low-key this year (he didn't even bring a chocolate bunny!), but everyone was happy just the same.

 The loot. He even included a "carrot" for Mom and Dad. How nice. ;)

 Inspecting the loot.

 Matthew seemed satisfied.

Church Duds
The boys got new matching outfits for Easter (and the rest of the summer). I even have a tiny version of the blue shirt/khaki shorts for the baby to wear this summer.

And Speaking of Baby...
This weekend was filled with lots of false labor. I'm a few days away from reaching 37 weeks, which, after my experience with Matthew, is a little surprising, as well as both a little disappointing and a little wonderful. I want to give birth to a healthy baby, and the longer he cooks, the more likely that will be the case. But these last few weeks of hanging on have been more miserable than anything. I'm starting to get tired of staying off my feet, but it's pretty painful to be up and around. Sometimes it feels like this baby is moments away from making his appearance, while others it feels like he'll never come. Luckily I know that's not the case. The end is in sight!


And now we have two more days of Spring Break before real life resumes. Here's hoping we survive both!