Our weekend Easter festivities began Friday afternoon when Ryan's brother Michael and his family showed up to spend the night with us. They drove up from Utah, and were happy to break their journey here. Of course, they showed up right as I was driving away to pick the kids up from school. Um, sorry guys... See you in a few? First up, I had to get Emma after another after school prosthetic arm session, then I picked up the rest of the girls so I can get Elizabeth to her piano lesson. Then I brought the remaining three kids home where I was able to visit for a bit before running back to pick Elizabeth up again. Man, some days I feel like I spend a lot of time in the car, running kids back and forth to their various activities. I need an audiobook just for me, so the kids don't complain that I went on without them.
We had a nice evening with Michael and Blair and kids, and stayed up way too late visiting. Before we knew it, it was time to head up to Rick and Kim's place for the real Easter festivities.
When we arrived, Caitlin had made "Team Rudy" shirts for all of the kids to wear for a picture. Ryan's uncle was diagnosed with a brain tumor earlier this week, and after running all of the tests and scans, his kidneys were not performing well enough for surgery. With 2-3 months to live without the surgery, the waiting game for his body to be well enough has everyone on pins and needles. We are thinking of you, Uncle Rudy!
Then the kids were turned loose to dye the hard boiled eggs. The white t-shirt then doubled as clothes protectors from the dye.
The family is now big enough that a second table is put out when everyone is together.
We only brought one dozen fresh-from-the-Kannely's-chickens eggs. The other two dozen from us were store bought. The brown eggs don't come out as brightly colored as white ones. I think the earthy colors are cool, but not all the kids agree.
We ate the big meal of the day- with both ham and leg of lamb. There was enough food to stuff ourselves well.
Afterwards the adults hid the eggs, both hard boiled and candy filled plastic ones. Then we set the kids free:
Ryan picked up one of our brown hard-boiled eggs, and was impressed with how hard the shell was. He proceeded to show half the kids by knocking it on their foreheads.
Because everyone was together, Ryan and I brought our camera tripod and we attempted to get a big family picture. With several tries, this is about as good as we can get without a real photographer.
We didn't stay really late, because our favorite babysitter ever was having her mission open house that evening and Ryan and I wanted to say goodbye. With family gatherings, we missed Handel's Messiah sing-a-long Friday evening and the Women's session of conference Saturday, but we made it to Jaci's open house.
The Easter Bunny left gifts last night. The candy offerings have dwindled over the years, to be replaced by some non-edibles like sticky notes, pens, toothpaste, and hair things. And I took no pictures today for some reason- none of the kids with their baskets, no dress pictures, no dinner pictures. I don't know what happened. I guess part of the problem was there were no Easter dresses this year, and we had to be at church early for choir practice. We are also trying to shift our focus a little, but doing most of the "fun" aspect of Easter the day before, and then thinking a little more about our Savior on Sunday.
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