Sunday: He is Risen!

He is Risen indeed!

Church this morning was good.  I think they introduced many new songs, which is my only complaint.  It takes at least two or three times with a song before I feel as though I can worship well.  But although I didn't know the songs, there was energy and excitement in the celebration.  And I knew some of the songs later, so that was nice.

I thought the pastor had an excellent sermon.  It was geared toward people who don't have a relationship with Jesus, but was still an excellent reminder of truth for the rest of us.  I don't feel as though he tried to force any belief on anyone then and there, but instead encouraged questions and continued discussion.  (Hopefully it will show up here within a few days if you're interested.)

Saturday: waiting day

Today always feels like a waiting day for me.  We remembered that Jesus died yesterday, and we know that we will celebrate that he rises from the dead tomorrow, but today we're just in a holding pattern.

So we did some egg activities.  We tried dying eggs with cool whip.  They're still in the fridge and we'll see how they turn out tomorrow.

Joshua was not really that excited.  This is about one of two times that he was actually participating and not screaming.

Isaac enjoyed it though!

Then we did an egg hunt.  Joshua figured out very quickly what he was supposed to do and really enjoyed it.

Isaac got right to work finding his eggs.  He ended up finishing about the same time as Joshua, although received significantly less help.

And there was candy inside!  I only put one smartie in each egg, so we did two rounds.

Then Isaac hid the eggs for Ben and me.  His hiding skills have improved significantly in the last month, let alone since last year!!  It took Ben and I about fifteen minutes to find all but two of them, and we needed a lot of help.  There are still two missing, and Isaac can't remember where he put them. :)  Then we had Isaac make an easy hunt for us...and it was much easier.  He definitely understood the difference.

Friday: Good Friday

Tonight we went to the Good Friday service at church.

One of the songs had the line "Come as you are."  Normally I think of adjectives such as sad, happy, etc to describe my state.  But today's adjective was distracted.  I was distracted by a squirmy four-year-old next to me.  I am distracted by the normal ins and outs of life.

But I went to church, to help remember that Jesus loves us so much.  Even when we're almost too distracted to remember it.

Thursday: sleepover and microwave

Last night we have a very short power outage.  Just long enough for us to say, "woah, did the power just go out?" and for all the clocks to reset.  This included the microwave.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it or not, but a year or two ago the beep on our microwave stopped working.  At first I found it odd, but then I found that I loved it!  No more trying to stop it from beeping to help people sleep.  No more annoying beeping noises at you; it turns out that the microwave makes plenty of noise and you can quickly learn to listen for the absence of noise.  I probably forget about something in the microwave every month or two, but it can usually just be reheated.

Well, the microwave also started beeping again.  Turns out there is an easy way to turn off the beeping.  I just had to push the settings button and then turn off the sound.  Phew.  I'd recommend taking a look at yours and trying it for a bit. :)

Also, I'm sure you're wondering how the sleepover last night went.  Not so well.  Isaac woke up at 10pm with Joshua, slept through the 4am waking, and woke up (and went to his own bed) at 6am.  He wanted to sleep in Joshua's room again tonight so he enjoyed the change of pace, but I think we need to wait a bit before trying again.  I didn't feel comfortable letting Joshua wimper for a few minutes to see if he would go back to sleep since I didn't want him to wake up Isaac.

Speaking of Joshua and Isaac, at daycare I usually pick up Isaac first and then we get Joshua.  We went in the room and Joshua was so excited!  Isaac went around the corner for some toys.  Joshua started to come over to me and then stopped.  He looked around a bit.  "IIaac?"  "He's around the corner."  Joshua goes around the corner.  "HI!"  It seems like it should make me sad but it really doesn't.  ...we just need to figure out how to get Isaac to enjoy being with Joshua a bit more.  Hopefully that'll come with time.

Wednesday: this and that

I feel as though Joshua is doing so many cute things lately.  (To be fair, he's also doing a lot of non-cute things.  But we won't go there.)

He's rocking.  And asking for more songs...and saying please.


He's setting up the self-timer on his play camera and saying "cheese".

I gave blood today.  It's the first time in quite a while, but it went very well.  There tend to be shortages after the winter holidays and during the summer.  While it is neither of those times, I am hoping to donate more often.

I cut the boys' hair today.  Isaac's only ended up ok; Joshua's turned out pretty good.  The person not getting their hair cut got the squirt bottle.  The floor was soaking wet by the time I was done.  However, Isaac had a grand time squirting the box.  He probably went through 1.5 bottles of water.

Isaac is sleeping in Joshua's bedroom tonight.  We billed it as a sleepover, but really it's an effort to get Joshua to sleep a bit better.  (Someone mentioned that sometimes seeing other people sleeping will trigger you to go back to sleep.  Since Isaac sleeps so soundly, it seems worth a try.  But also fun.)  He was up three times last night, although I only had to get out of bed twice.  I do have another idea as to what could help solve the problem, but don't really want to do it.  At least, not for about another month.

Tuesday: finished dream

This morning my dream finished right before I woke up.  We (my group of adventurers and I) were getting on our flying carpets after our mission when Joshua cried that he was awake.

It was so odd to wake up and feel a sense of completion.  Usually I'm happy to get out of a bad dream or sad to get out of a happy one.

Monday: when we're home...

Today we stayed home for most of the day.  (We went to the gym, but that was in the early evening.)  I couldn't think of any errands that really needed to be done and it was rather cold out.

Isaac worked on a kite for the kitchen.  He made it yesterday during quiet time, but it still needed tape.  Green tape (scotch) and yellow tape (double sided).  Then it needed strong tape (masking).  Then it needed really strong tape (packing).  He also told me I could add some stickers if I wanted to.

It also took him forever to get dressed.  I'm not always sure what he does, but it can be nice.  He was asking for quiet time all morning...we just put some new toys in his quiet time drawer and apparently they're a hit.  (The quiet times for Friday-Sunday all lasted about twice as long as normal.)

Joshua was acting a bit weird today.   He wanted to read on the floor of his bedroom with his quilt over him and the cedar chest runner over me.  That would have been fine.  But then after a page or two something would be wrong so he'd get up and deal with it.  But then he'd need the quilt back on... It was funny at first and then got annoying.

Lastly, this week is V week for Isaac.  There aren't a lot of things to bring that start with V.  We have a website that we look at that is pretty good and he really wanted to bring a Venn Diagram.  Not having any handy, we made one.  I'm pretty sure it is a glimpse of things to come, as it felt oddly like a school assignment.  It was a pretty cool thing to do with stickers though...I'd recommend it as an activity.