Easter Surprises

My children have been quick to inform me that since we were going to San Francisco for Spring Break, we won't be home for Easter and needed to have our Easter Egg hunt early. I'm way ahead of them in the planning, but I didn't tell them that. I kept putting them off, saying that perhaps we could have a hunt the week AFTER Spring Break. That was always met with a round of groans and sad faces.

I decided to try something new this year after reading on Kris J's blog (thanks for the idea) from last year that they hid Easter baskets and their kids searched for those. We have always hid the little plastic Easter eggs--some years they are filled and some not. A basket hunt sounded like a lot of fun to me. I mentioned that we might be doing something different this year and, of course, more groans and sad faces. (They have since recanted on their complaints, for as in Kristen's words, "This is the best day ever!")

In the past couple of weeks, I have been assembling the baskets. I bought some cute baskets that would be functional and useful in their rooms and filled them with new swimming suits (to be used on vacation), sunglasses (which would come in handy on vacation), Disney shirts (for our next vacation), and some other fun, non-vacation related gifts.

In order to really surprise them, I came home from church during Sunday School, and played Easter Bunny. Each girl was given 18 eggs of one color to find--Misha's were blue, Amy's were green, and Kristen's were purple--and their note said that finding the eggs would give them the clue to finding their basket.



It took them a little bit of time to find all of their eggs, and Amy was first to realize that there was a clue in one of her eggs. It said, "You never know what's in store when you clean up this room." Store and room were underlined. Misha figured out Amy's clue in no time, but Amy didn't seem to believe her and kept saying, "Hmmm, what could it be?"



To her credit, Amy did look in the cupboard in the STOREROOM (storage area) where I had hidden her basket, but thought the basket there was just a basket that belonged there.

Kristen's clue read, "This place is too HOT to handle." She required some assistance from Chris to look in the right place.



Misha's note said, "Exercise good judgment." For some reason she latched on to the Wii idea in the family room and had to be persuaded to look elsewhere, such as the "Exercise" room. Can you say uber excited?



It was a lot of fun and agreed by all that we should do it again.

Easter Traditons Year Two

We had a successful second year of one of our new Easter traditions. Instead of dying hard-boiled eggs, which was always a huge mess, last year we started a new tradition of decorating sugar cookies. It was much more fun and the girls actually ate their creations--they rarely ate the eggs.





I made the cookie dough yesterday while they were trying to fly a kite in the horrendous wind. They were in and out of the house and walking past me, and fortunately, never asked what I was doing. Amy did ask this morning what was in the covered container in the fridge.





We baked the cookies after church. They cooled for about an hour, and the girls were raring to go. Granted the clean up afterward isn't likely any better than from hard-boiled eggs, but the spoils are definitely sweeter.

Chores

Kristen is getting more responsibilities with Saturday morning chores. Today she got to help Amy clean their bathroom. This is what I heard from Amy, "Come on Kristen. If you don't come now, you aren't going to get to clean the toilet. Hurry. Kristen, I'm going to clean the toilet and you won't get to." Obviously not a selling point for me, but Kristen seems to like certain chores.

Snow Day

I had visions of a repeat performance from last year where we had a snow day on Thursday and Friday before Spring Break. The kids loved it. Me? Not so much. Granted I probably would have canceled school Tuesday night as well with the snow falling in buckets and the wind blowing wildly.

Wednesday morning dawned quite beautifully with a blanket of snow inches deep. It took me an hour to shovel the driveway, and half way through I had to ask Chris to come help. It was quite a workout. From there, the day just got nicer and nicer. The sledding hill was PACKED and my girls spent half of the day outside. Fortunately, they were off to school Thursday morning to finish off the week.

Looking ahead, we have another snow storm moving in tonight with the potential to dump just as much snow, and then it is smooth sailing in to next week and Spring Break. The temperatures are supposed to be in the high 60s and 70. You'd think I'd be saying "woohoo", but we are heading to San Francisco where we'll see more of the 50s and clouds.

New Bike

This was Chris' Facebook post a couple of days ago: just picked up my new 29er bike. I'm new to clips so I see falling in my future.

He has been anxious to get out and ride and this just makes him even more excited, or maybe MADE (past tense) is what I should say. I was folding clothes in the laundry room. Chris and Misha had gone for a ride. He came in through the garage and said, "I think I'm going to need some bandages." Knowing what he had posted on his Facebook page, I thought maybe he was talking about himself. But I looked at him, and he looked fine so then I thought he was talking about Misha even though he wasn't urgently asking for help. Then he held up his arms, and I could see a little bit of blood on his elbows. Not a big deal. THEN, he turned around. It was SO SO SO fortunate that he was wearing his fleece vest and jeans! His entire ENTIRE backside was covered in goatheads--nasty, evil little things! I didn't have the heart to tell him to hold still while I got the camera to take a picture. You'll just have to imagine it and cringe at the thought. I helped pull out the slivers and goatheads from his bare forearms (luckily the rest of him was covered). He spent quite awhile removing the goatheads from his clothing.

Yolks

We are not huge yolk lovers at our house. I figure you were either born liking them or not and there's no learning to like them. Kristen forgot what the yolks were called and while I was peeling two boiled eggs for her lunch asked, "Did you take the puke out?" I looked at her funny thinking she had just insulted the egg by saying how nasty the yolks taste. I realized from her confused face that she wasn't sure she had said the right thing. "Do you mean the yolk?" I asked. "Oh yes, that's what it is called."

Fairly fortuitous however to call a yolk 'puke', since they are pretty disgusting.

Generation Gap

This morning when Misha was asked what cable cars were, Chris and I laughed and laughed and laughed at her response: "They have cable in them?" A true illustration of the huge generation gap that's as wide as a canyon for our children.

Spring Break

I mentioned awhile back that Chris and I were going to surprise our kids for Spring Break by flying somewhere. The girls have had the opportunity over the past weeks to ask questions about where we would be going and had it narrowed down to California. Since we don't have family in SAN FRANCISCO, we decided that now that they have determined the general location, they can get excited about where we are going and do a little research about some of the fun things to do while there. Chris and Kristen are going to research BART and Alcatraz (mostly because Chris wants to get tickets to see it). Amy is going to learned about "the big red bridge" (hopefully she'll remember the name of it by the time she is done), Fisherman's Wharf, and the big fire. Misha gets to learn about the Exploratorium (a pretty cool museum), cable cars, and earthquakes.

They were pretty excited when they figured out the clue: Where does DJ live (Full House)? Now they can have some fun planning and dreaming.

Odyssey of the Mind Round Two

Amy had her Odyssey of the Mind performance this past Saturday. Her team's theme involved finding creative ways to make things fly. All wore togas and were Greek Gods (Amy was Athena). They rode Zeus Express airlines to the North Pole where they proceeded to have a snowball fight and launched snowballs with a variety of student-made machines. It was another long day for the kids, but the end result was exciting. Her team won gold. They, too, will go to the State competition next month. Congratulations sweetheart.

Bungee Buns

I don't know where she comes up with some of the things she says, but this lovely hairdo is called "bungee buns".

Odyssey of the Mind

Amy and Misha have been participating in a world-wide school program this year called Odyssey of the Mind. It challenges the kids to create a sketch and build a small set picking from four or five scenarios. The kids have a coach who is there for guidance, training and practice, but who can't tell them what direction they should take and can't build stuff for them. Really, the kids have to do everything on their own. Both girls are in different groups and Misha had her competition last Saturday in Littleton. There are a lot of rules and time frames to follow and they are judged meticulously. Later in the day, they have another challenge called "Spontaneous" where they are given a problem to solve on the fly.

It was a long day, but longer for their coach who stayed for the awards ceremony. With so many schools participating, we didn't really think Misha's team would place, but when her coach knocked on the door, she held a 2nd place trophy high in the air and her daughter handed Misha her medal (you remember the medal incident from a couple of days ago, I'm sure). We were surprised. Misha's face lit up, and she was obviously thrilled. She wore her medal to school and loved being a "celebrity" for the day. Woohoo Misha.



Amy has her competition this Saturday (luckily a little closer to home). We hope that she does great as well. They have both put in hours and hours of time in practice and preparation.

Hefty Hefty Hefty

You've probably seen the Glad commercial for trash bags. My girls will always chant along, "Hefty Hefty Hefty. Stinky Stinky Stinky." going from a low octave to a high octave.

Kristen was just chanting and then said to me, "You're hefty; I'm stinky." Gee, thanks. But wait, she just changed her mind, "No, you're stinky, and I'm hefty." Really, child, neither is a compliment.

People Notice

Chris and our girls love to eat steak. I don't care much for it; it all just tastes like liver to me. So we frequently eat at Texas Roadhouse (I eat chicken) even though we always comment on how noisy it always is. During our last visit, the noise level was a little higher around us because there was a birthday party seated directly behind us. Their kids were up and down and changing seats along with the parents it seemed. Crazy. There was also an older couple with their adult son seated directly across from us. We didn't really pay much attention to them, but as they stood to leave, the father leaned down and spoke into my ear, "Your children are so well-behaved." I certainly wasn't expecting such a comment and so smiled and thanked him. I then passed the compliment on to Chris and my girls. We noted that people are always ALWAYS watching us.

I remember when they were younger and there were times when Chris or I would leave a restaurant with a child who was misbehaving. It seemed like such a struggle then to make an impact and frankly not worth the effort. But now, I can see that it was. They aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but they do know what displaying "restaurant manners" means. Incidentally, restaurant manners aren't any different than home manners, it just means that the consequence for not having them while at a restaurant results in leaving the restaurant versus being sent to your room.

EBay

You know my husband has had a bad day when he bids up an item on Ebay just for the fun of it.

Parenting Humor

So it wasn't really a situation where I thought I would end up laughing. Kristen grabbed something from Misha and started running with it. Misha quickly took up the chase, all the while yelling wildly, "Give it b-aaaaaaaaaa-ck!!!!!" (Involves inflection as well as a few syllables). I gave my usual stern warning, "Kristen!" She responded to Misha with, "You can have it back if you ask for it nicely." Misha didn't want to ask nicely as they were still chasing each other around the living room. However, she finally took a deep breath, faked a sweet tone and said, "May I please have my medal back?" I didn't hear what Kristen said next, but I quickly discerned what it was when I heard Misha indignantly respond, "I'm not saying it in SPANISH!!!!!!" I laughed and then intervened....and then went to share a laugh with Chris.