Easter 2025

Easter celebrations started on Palm Sunday for us, a week before Easter. Our stake created a Holy Week experience commemorating the final events of Jesus Christ's ministry on Earth. They had different rooms set up for each day at our stake center. It was well put together. The only hiccup was the fog machine letting out too much fog and causing the fire alarms to go off. We had to go wait outside for a little bit while they figured that out, but it continued on just fine afterwards. We would go from room to room until we ended in the gym to eat desserts. Our ward was assigned to bring desserts and so I signed up and made lemon bars. I hadn't made those in years, but they turned out good. We filled up on desserts before going home to cook dinner. I felt so sick from eating too much. 

Lemon bars for the event. We actually cut these bars in half after I took this picture so that more people could have them. I'm so glad we did because I ate a whole one and it was a lot for a lemon bar.

This room was about Jesus going to the temple. 

The Last Supper

The crucifixion.

In the last room where the stone was rolled away and he wasn't there. He has risen and is alive! And because of him all of us will be resurrected someday!

Originally, Stillman's whole family was going to come stay with us through Easter weekend. Unfortunately, their family got sick from their friend's little boy who had come over sick to their house a couple weeks prior. Most of Stillman's family was better by last week, except Michelle. She suffered from a bad sore throat and other things so she stayed home. And since she stayed home, Stillman's family came just for Saturday so that we could still go to do baptisms at the temple, which was part of our original plan. It was Keaton's first time. We were able to do 5 names each, so 35 names! It was a perfect thing to do on Easter weekend, as baptism represents death, burial and resurrection.

I said let's get pictures before going in to do baptisms. Thankfully we got there in time to be able to do that.

The four cousins.

After the temple, we got some Papa Murphy's pizza and cooked it up at our house. Then we played Ticket to Ride and Bank. Stillman and the boys didn't head home until just after 9pm. I'm so glad they were able to come. It just would have been better if Michelle could have made it also. 

Charlotte made a little cross out of the yellow cheese in honor of Jesus and Easter weekend.

Here's a closer look.

Got a picture of us before Stillman left for home.

The girls got in bed early because they were excited about Easter and the Easter bunny coming. Alice is the only one that still believes in the Easter bunny, but Charlotte plays along for her sake. The girls set out a plate of carrots and Alice wrote a note. It was pretty cute. And I have to say, the Easter bunny is a lot healthier than Santa. Ha ha  I did tell Alice that the Easter bunny and the parents both put stuff in the baskets.

Baskets are ready to be filled and hidden.

"Dear Easter bunny, I know it's hard to go to a lot of houses, so here is some delicious carrots." 

I wanted to get pictures of the kids with their Easter stuff but that didn't happen. I was hoping to wait until they got dressed but then they disappeared with their stuff and started eating their goodies. This year, the only treat they got was one main treat that they would like. We're trying to tone down on the sweets. Garrett got a pale green tie, a book light, a temple recommend holder, a watch and a Reese's bunny. Jack got a pale purple tie, sunglasses, a temple recommend holder, a watch and a small container of Nutella. Charlotte got new white sandal shoes for church (which we ended up taking back because they were too tight by her toes), lip gloss, a 3D printed golden dragon and egg, a chocolate bunny and a necklace. Alice got the same white shoes (which fit her fine), lip gloss, a 3D rainbow colored dragon and egg, a box of gumball eggs, and a necklace. And I gave Curtis a new pale-yellow tie and bought a new outfit for myself. I needed some lighter spring/summer colors! I never thought I would buy a white skirt, but I found one that I love at Burlington. I bought two other skirts as well. One from Burlington and the other from Goodwill. This year I wanted to make sure we got a family picture on Easter, so we did it right after Sacrament services and Jack's friend Cam took the picture of us.

Garrett, Jack and Cam

Garrett needed a picture for his missionary paperwork, so we got individual shots as well. This is the one we used for his missionary account.

Wearing her new necklace and showing her long, beautiful hair. I only wish we would have had time to curl hers.

I did have time to curl Alice's hair. And she's wearing her new shoes and necklace.

I also never thought I'd buy a shirt with gems on it, but again I really liked this shirt, so I did!

It was a very good musical Sacrament meeting with one main speaker. Jack and I both got up to sing with the choir for one number, which was unexpected since he hadn't been to any of the practices. 

The rest of the day was fairly relaxed. I requested that we have smoked chicken thighs again with red roasted potatoes, salad and homemade rolls. Curtis took charge of the meat while I got the rest of the food prepared. I love that the kids love my homemade rolls. It makes it worth making them. Curtis also mixed up some lemonade. We did a simple dessert of ice cream later while watching a new documentary we bought at the church bookstore about Porter Rockwell. It was very interesting.

The girls received some bubble guns from Brother Brown because we had helped them with several parades from his judge campaign last year and they didn't need the guns anymore. So, the girls had a great time playing with those all afternoon. Then after dinner we played a round of croquet. Charlotte won. It was a nice Easter even though we were by ourselves again.

Playing with the bubble guns.

That's a high swing for croquet! LOL

Getting ready for a picture. I took a test one. I liked it because of their smiles. I set the camera up on the picnic table.

I had to crop this picture later so we could see us better.

Charlotte's golden egg and dragon.

Alice's rainbow egg and dragon.

I was able to get a picture with Garrett and his stuff (except the temple recommend holder). He ate his chocolate, but I had told him to save the box for a picture. 

The funny thing is that we didn't do any egg hunts this year. We also bought and boiled some eggs for coloring but didn't end up coloring any eggs during the weekend. The girls did color what was left (because some got eaten) on Monday, the day after Easter. 

Spring Break in Nampa Part 2

Saturday morning was General Conference. We cooked up some scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast for breakfast. After I got that all cleaned up, I sat down to work on the difficult puzzle some more and Charlotte tried to do the smaller cheap butterfly puzzle, but the pieces bend up a little and make it difficult to put them together. (I ended up just throwing that whole puzzle in the recycle at the end of the day.) When the first session ended, we had made plans to meet Melissa's daughter Ellie and her husband and dog at the dog park so that our two golden retrievers could play. They had fun playing with other dogs too, including Melissa's dog, Aussie. Melissa was going to come also but her new meds made her too tired and she had to stay home and rest. It was the first time we had ever taken Milo to a dog park and it went pretty well. At one point there was a kid that asked to use this guy's ball thrower. The boy was standing fairly close to me and as I was looking out at the other dogs play, this boy somehow accidentally threw a ball right on my lower left jaw. It hurt! But thankfully all it did was get a little red. Amazingly it didn't swell up. 

Milo was pretty good at catching his frisbee.

Maverick and Milo. Maverick is so soft for a golden retriever. They are so lucky!

Trying to get the three dogs to pose for a picture is worse than kids, lol.

After we finished at the dog park, we dropped Milo off at grandma's and picked up Jack so we could go see Melissa and Nathan's new house and the progress they have made. I hadn't actually seen any progress past when they broke ground, so they are really far from that point. Nathan was there to give us the tour. It's a big, beautiful house up on a bit of a hill where they can see the valley and the nearby Lake Lowell. They will also be putting in a swimming pool and hot tub. It's going to be super nice! I can't wait to see it when it's finished. Jack really wants to come back for 4th of July so we can come watch fireworks from their house. We'll see. The house is supposed to be finished in May for the parade of homes, but they still have quite a bit to do. And I was too busy looking at the house and helping grandma up and down stairs to remember to take pictures. I'll for sure get pictures next time.

We headed back to grandma's house to watch and listen to the 2nd session of conference. I have to admit, it was difficult for me to pay attention to all of the talks because I was busy working on a puzzle and I had invited Whitney to come help and she did. So she got to listen to some of conference as well. I even heard her humming along to some of the choir songs. I should have done this with her a long time ago. Work on a puzzle while listening to general conference is a great way to get her to listen to conference, ha ha. 

I didn't get much farther than this before we left for Nampa.

I didn't really work on it much more after conference was over on Saturday. Whitney left and then Tamara and her boys came over as well as Dad, Mom, Aunt Joyce and Porter and his mom Heather to play games, eat food and later on watch "Escape from Germany". It was a good movie and a fun day. I'm glad I got to see some friends on this trip and of course, my sister. I also was able to arrange to have one of Garrett's friends, Ryan Loveland, come over to play videogames with him. So Garrett got to see several friends as well. And he needed it again!

Sunday morning, I made pancakes for the kids while listening to conference. Then we packed our bags, ate a good lunch that Mom and Dad made for us. My in-laws also showed up to give Charlotte her birthday gift before we left for home. Back in January when they had come for Alice's baptism, I had asked my mother-in-law if there was something she could make with Charlotte's old baby blanket. Her blanket had been falling apart, and she had told me to throw it away about a year ago or so and instead I hid it in my closet. I just felt like maybe there was something we could do to make it last longer for her because I know she loved that blanket so much. Well, my mother-in-law was able to make a new blanket out of it with an added backing to it and quilted it to make it stronger. Charlotte loved it! The cool part is that this blanket was originally given to Charlotte when she was a baby by Laverne. So that made it extra special.

To go along with the restored blanket, she also received a new puzzle and licorice.

Here's the original side. One small section in the bottom right had to be cut and resewn to the bigger piece.

And this is the added backing.

After they took off, we got some pictures out front and loaded up our van. Tamara and her boys even rushed over to say goodbye before we left. and I was able to give her a few food items from the fridge and freezer that we did not use. It was a good spring break!

Because Jack rode home with Curtis, Milo had enough space to lay on his bed in the back. We piled our luggage right behind him. He approved.

Us with Grandma.

Us with and Dad and Mom.

Oh, and because I didn't want to let all of that work go to waste on the difficult puzzle that Whitney and I had worked on, I decided to carefully pull it apart in big sections and place them in a plastic bag to take home and finish later. I placed it under one of the girls' seats in the van to avoid it getting broken apart while traveling. I now have two puzzles to finish, and Charlotte has one (which she got the perimeter done but hasn't done much since, like me). We'll just have to work on them here and there, but I will probably wait until either Charlotte's 500-piece puzzle, or my 1000-piece puzzle is done before finishing Mickey & Minnie, so I can have space on our folding table downstairs for it. That's where the two big ones are right now.

All of the extra pieces are inside the box.

I almost forgot to mention the worse part of this trip. After getting to bed late Saturday night, I was awakened around 1:30am by Charlotte who tells me that she threw up. She said she doesn't know what happened, that she was just dreaming and then all of a sudden, she woke up and puked. Her stomach didn't hurt before going to sleep and it didn't hurt after she threw up. It just felt empty afterwards. Poor Alice was sleeping on the same bed and got some on her clothes. I had to wake her up for her to change and strip the bed completely. Alice changed and then got settled on a couch downstairs. Then I proceeded to take the bedding to the bathroom and rinse off everything that got puke on it. I finally decided that I needed to wake up Curtis for help because the clean-up would go faster and then we could get to bed sooner. I rinsed and then he took everything to down to the washing machine and use spray and wash on some areas. After we finished with the bedding, Charlotte took a quick shower and then I helped her blow dry and brush it so that she didn't have to sleep with wet hair. We set her up on a couch on the main floor. Curtis got back to bed before we did and when Charlotte and I finally did go back to bed, it was around 3am. I was just hoping I wouldn't be too tired for traveling home. 

We don't know what happened. That was the only incident. Thankfully, there was a mattress protector on the bed and so nothing leaked through to the mattress. After washing everything, strangely enough, the mattress protector was the only item that had a little bit of reddish stain on it (from either pizza or berries). It was faded but you could still see it. Charlotte felt better the next morning but was still careful on what she ate. And we made it home without any more incidents.