He is risen, indeed!!!

I don't think there is hardly anything more touching than being in church on Easter morning when someone says, "He is risen!" and everybody else responds, "He is risen, indeed!" All Christians feel like such a "team" when we say that! Hmm...I wonder if that call and response was the first "team" call and response? Maybe "Boomer!" "Sooner!" is rooted in "He is risen!" [Just kidding. But it still makes me smile.]

We had a lovely Easter weekend. It was good to be away from the computer for a few days. Extra good to be in the company of my mom for a few days.

Friday night the children dyed Easter eggs. Kendi thought it was really fun to see how high up she could drop the egg into the dye. She ruined her dress, but oh well. She is in that very independent stage where "I do it!" is a very common sentence. She did it all right!

I made some off-handed comment about how I used to blow out eggs so that I could make decorations (mostly Christmas tree decor, as I remember). That led to me wasting 20 minutes of my life to blow out ONE egg for Taevy to color and save. Oh my! How in the world did I used to do that?! At one point they said my lips were turning blue from blowing so hard! LOL!

The next morning we went to a church Easter egg hunt that was mostly a flop but was good for a few minutes of fun, and a very few photos.

One of the cool things about going to my mom's house is that she and my step-dad always offer to watch the kids while Eric and I go and do something. Usually it's just a trip to wal-mart. But a trip to wal-mart without 4 kids is a TREAT! So Eric and I went shopping for some new boots for him. And it was nice and relaxing. And we came home with much more than boots (it was wal-mart after all)!

Saturday evening all of the dyed eggs were stripped of their shells and made into egg salad. Bright and Kendi thought it was the BEST to help Grandma do that task. Grandma thought it was the best too. I only tasted a few egg shells in my egg salad sandwich the next day. =-)

Sunday morning. Resurrection day! Honestly, I was a total stress ball before church. I have this need for holiday mornings to be perfect. And it wasn't. I did Kendi's hair in an awful hair style the night before, so we took that out. But I had no product to make her free hair look defined. I forgot my own hair product too! We made do, but still... Taevy threw a fit about me doing her hair. I didn't have time to paint my toe nails. Yep, satan really got the best of me Sunday morning. I got totally out of whack over all of these stupid little things. THEN what really set me over the top was that I didn't have time to take "before church" Easter pictures. Taevy took a few for me, but that meant that I only got little kid before church pictures. [She did an awesome job though, I must say.] Then as we were running late and should have been out the door my mom clicked a few full family photos. But Kendi was crying, and I didn't get any on my camera, and they are probably no good. [I am liking the word "and" tonight for some reason.] By the time we walked out the door I was spitting mad at my family. I spent the entire drive to church griping at them. Isn't that awful?

So of course when we got to church I was feeling extremely guilty. I ruined Easter morning! Not the hair, or the toe nails or the pictures--they didn't ruin it. *I* ruined it with my attitude!!! Once the guilt set in so did the tears. I'm telling you! Wow. When the people turned around to shake my hand during the "welcome" they took one look at me, looked down, and moved to the next person! LOL! I cried the first 15 minutes or so of church.

After my good cry I settled down. The kids had a good time. We were all together to celebrate our Lord. That's the important thing. Thankfully I realized it before I ruined the ENTIRE day.

After church the whole family came over (kids and grandkids) for egg salad and an Easter egg hunt. It was a very nice time. 10 of 13 grandkids were there, so we got a pretty cool picture of all the kids together. Kendi was a hoot during the Easter Egg hunt. Some of the eggs had money in them. Kendi figured that out very quickly. She would find her color (each child had their own color), and shake the egg. If it had money she would go, "Money, money, money, money!" If it didn't have money, she'd look at the egg as if it were rotten, would toss it into the basket without a second thought, and look for more money eggs. LOL! Of course, once she learned that the non-money eggs had candy in them that was a totally different story!

After an good, but exhausting weekend, we headed home. We got home around 8pm last night. My time is running out before the trip to Ghana. I am so NOT ready. It's hard to not only get myself packed, but also to pack for the kids to leave home for 2 weeks, and think about how much food the dogs will need; will anybody run out of medicine; do I have enough diapers and pull-ups; who is taking Eric where he needs to go; lots to do. Might be an all-nighter the night before the trip.

Anita....who has eaten way more than her share of laffy taffy in the last day, but is 18 pounds down over all!
P.S. Under the "not a good idea" catagory: Not a good idea to wax your eye brows with a new type of wax, after not waxing your eye brows for months, two days before Easter. This will leave you with BURNED bright red skin above your brows and on your upper eye lids. This is not a good look for Easter! A day after Easter, your burned skin will begin to peel away (think bad sunburn on your eye lids)! This is not a good look for an upcoming trip to Ghana!!!