Eastering, in reverse

 I uploaded all these Easter photos in reverse and I am too lazy to put them in the proper order.  That's okay... this blog post is a whirl, just like Easter week was! 

Onward, ho!

Uncle John and Aunt Holly hosted Easter- and it is always such a delicious feast!

Look at those twinkly eyes..... gah!!!

And those PIGGY TAILS!  Oh my word.  

(There's always ONE....isn't there?!)

I got an itch to draw something other than just words on the chalkboard.  This fox, while fun to draw, seemed to freak everyone out except Adele' and I.  

Well, maybe me too, sometimes.  ;-)

For some reason, I always seemed to have the sensation of being watched...

My egg dyers are dwindling...

I am always slightly jealous of Aunt Holly getting to host the holiday with the fun Easter egg hunt!  

Call me a kid, but I *LOVE* Easter egg hunts.

And this year, I thought, well, who says we can't have our own egg hunt?  And with all the woods walks, I've been taking, I thought about how fun it would be (and challenging for bigger people) to take the hunt into the woods.

So many rocks and crevices and wonderful hiding places!  

Easter Sunday was too busy so I planned it for Saturday evening instead.  

(The weather was perfect.)

We invited David and CC along too.

What I didn't figure on, was how walking intensive this idea would be!  

(If you want to know why I am wearing ears and whiskers... well, it should be self-explanatory.  I'm a dork.  Also, I live for making children smile.)

Day 1- I hiked out alone with the easter 'baskets'.  I used large plastic eggs to keep the moisture, bugs and animals out so those could be hidden the day before.

Day 2, morning - I hiked out alone to hide all the small, individual candy-filled eggs along the path.  Everyone got 10 eggs each.  (WHY do those eggs have holes in them?!!  One egg, once found, was a perfect little ant hotel.)

Day 2- evening- I hiked out with everyone for the actual hunt.

It made it a lot more time-consuming, but it was SO worth it!  I loved every minute of it and plan to do it every year from now on. Woods walk egg hunts are 10/10.

(Andrew joined us eventually.  That's a working man for ya.)

If you look really closely at this photo, it looks almost like Andrew has some elfin in him.

I tried to make it extra hard for the bigger boys.  They are hunters, after all.  (And it worked!  They were the last to find their treats!)

Afterward, we had pizza and watched a movie.

Easter morning~ I made sourdough cinnamon roll foccacia, among other things.  It was edible.

A week or so later, our church hosted an Easter feast.  I heard an idea on a podcast about how a family had the idea of a dragon pinata that the children can 'slay' for Easter, just as Jesus slays the dragon of the garden.  I loved the idea and wanted to steal it.

So I made a pinata.  Originally, I was going to make it dragon-shaped, but since I am Rebecca, procrastinator extraordinaire- I wound up slapdashing it together at the last minute and calling on Moses to color a dragon to paste on instead.

We took it to the feast with the glue still tacky in places. 

But it was a hit.  

Literally.  

;-)

Winter's End

The old blog has been sorely neglected- which is, sadly, not unusual.  The odd thing about it, though, is that I feel as though I have been doing a great job keeping up to date on posting things thanks to my weekly posts about woods walks on Instagram.  

I even get my writing itch (and soapbox rants) scratched with monthly letters I have been writing to a select few.

All of this gives the feeling of being very on top of putting things down for posterity, and yet, this online 'remembrance book' is not doing very much remembering.  Frankly, my brain doesn't do much remembering these days, either.

So, because my brain is a sieve, it mustn't be always winter, never spring on this blog and because my husband could use a glimpse of home tonight (Hello husband! I love you!)... here is a photo dump of Winter's End... 

All of these window photos only reveal how desperately I long for light (and bright and color) in the dark winter months.

Adele' is such a good sport about playing with her siblings. 

It warms my heart every time I see her.  Here they are playing 'business'.  Moses got into his 'business' garb for the occasion.

Moses fills up a bulletin board entirely by himself.  What a bulletin board hog!  

And what an artist!

I know this window would drive some people nutty but it really makes me happy. 

I wonder at how the 6 year old hands are indistinguishable from the 17 year old hands... that just isn't fair!

Judah went on an Adirondack camping trip and snowshoe hike on the coldest weekend of winter and tested both his and my strength.  I spent the entire time praying for him.  I was so worried!

Praise the Lord, He survived to tell the tale.  And, not surprisingly, he enjoyed himself.

The following photos are from an ice-fishing derby Newmans had on the lake in which not a single fish was caught, ice hockey preoccupied all while they waiting for the imaginary fish to nibble, and the cutest little snowbaby was snuggled.

(Especially by Judah)

Through the winter, I have made and canned up countless jars of bone broth.  So, so good to have on hand for soups.  

Valentine's Day: 

For the observant among you, you may notice that Adele' did not have a corny valentine to wake up to...

 She happened to be in North Carolina to visit a pal.  Her valentines (still corny) was tucked in her suitcase.

So you see, we love her too.  :-)

 

This Valentine's Day... I was given a very, very special gift.  Andrew brought home roses for me (!!!!) and made his Mama cry.  For a moment, I was a young mother again, being loved on by my little boy.

It was the best.  

The very, very best.

He didn't want me to snap this picture but when I was crying and saying I wanted to remember it always  "and YOU know how bad my memory is these days..." he acquiesced. 

I am taking my goal of sourdough experimenting and homemade snacks/breads seriously.

Very seriously.

As you will see by all the winter, low-light carb photos in this post.

We did a science experiment!  

(Leave it to me to do science experiments only when it involved sugar.)

See? Lots of carbs...

Adele' bought her sweet little niece Naomi a rainbow romper that is just THE CUTEST.

Naomi matched the prism rainbows dancing on the wall.  

I took too many pictures of it.

But really, can there be too many pictures of rainbow babies as cute as her?!

Nope.