Carpet, eggs, and candy

Nadia's purple carpet was installed this morning. I made the mistake of not telling the installer that we needed to leave at 10:45. When they had installed the family room carpet there were two men working together. There was only one today, and that naturally meant it took a little longer. I was thinking I might need to leave him here in the house by himself (which Paul didn't think was a good idea), but he finished close enough that I said I'd do the vacuuming and put most of the furniture back by myself if he'd just move the piano and dresser back into the room. I helped him carry some of his stuff downstairs, and we were able to leave just in the nick of time. As we walked in the man in charge of the event chided me for running behind a little. I didn't think our arrival would delay the start of the event. Anyhow it didn't even start until about 5 minutes after we arrived. I don't like to show up late, but I was trying to wait until the carpet was installed. Oliver got nine eggs from the 1-4 year old field, and none of them were prize eggs. Ian got the same number of eggs from the 5-8 field and

also didn't get any prize eggs. All their eggs had small pieces of candy inside like Hershey kisses or Tootsie Rolls. Nadia got about 13 eggs of which 3 were hardboiled and about 10 were plastic eggs with candy inside. One of hers was a prize egg. She got five large water blasters that will come in handy this summer at the pool (she's holding them in the photo with the Easter bunny). Nadia only had 1-2 bites of her hotdog, but the rest of us ate our free hotdogs and then went home to work on putting Nadia's room back in order. Nadia also took a nap. She still hasn't been feeling well today although she hasn't thrown up as often as she did yesterday. She ate normally on Thursday, ate nothing on Friday, and only had a few bites of food over the course of the day today.

The kids asked if there was any way we could go to three egg hunts today since we didn't go to any last Saturday, and I found that a town about 7 minutes from us was having one at 1:00. We had never been to that one before. They had mostly candy on the grass with only a very few plastic eggs which were all

prize eggs. Some of the candy on the grass were very big (ex. large chocolate bunnies). All three of my kids were in different age groups. None of them got any prize eggs, but they got a lot more candy at that one than they did at the first one. Then I drove back to our town and showed up at the playground where the 2:00 egg hunt was being held. We got there about 40 minutes early, but I figured the kids could enjoy the playground some since the temps were in the 70's. Oliver got eggs on the field for ages 4-6, and Nadia and Ian were on the same field for ages 7-9. Oliver had one prize egg which was for a chocolate bunny, and Ian had two prize eggs. One was for a $5 gift certificate to a local sub shop, and the other was for a box with four chocolate bunnies. So all in all Ian had two prize eggs, Nadia got one prize egg, and Oliver got one prize egg. The prizes given out run the full gamut from a box of crayons to a bicycle. At the third egg hunt they gave our four bicycles (four different sizes - one for each age group). The weather was gorgeous. Some years the kids have worn winter coats at an egg hunt, but partly that is because Easter moves around and sometimes is in March.

When we got home I went back to working on Nadia's room. We did a great job of purging today. I had the van trunk door open as I was carrying things out to put in the trunk to take to Goodwill. Oliver pushed the button to lower the garage door while the van trunk door was open. I thought for sure he had done serious damage to the van door, but amazingly it seems to be fine. It seemed like it was going to be a VERY expensive donation for me if it cost a large repair bill for the van. Whew. We only have one very small pile left to go through. Her room is a lot more organized now than it was a few days ago. Hopefully it will stay this way for at least a while. I will take a pic soon to show you her beautiful new carpet. I bought purple carpet one other time - in 2004 and that room was Nadia's bedroom for the first three months of her life. This time it was HER idea. Now of course the boys also want new carpet in their room. I don't think that will actually be happening in the near future, but maybe at some point we will. I think if we do another room it will be the master bedroom.

Our church usually has three services each Sunday morning - one in Spanish at 9:00, one in English at 9:00, and one in English at 10:45. On Easter weekend they add two more - one on Saturday night at 6:00 and a sunrise service at 6:30am on Sunday. The choir usually sings in two services, but we sing in three services for Easter - the Saturday evening one being our third. This year they are also having the 9:00 service in a second room as an overflow. Last year there were about 2,500 on Easter whereas typically we have an attendance between 1,500-1,700 each week. I really love the anthem we are singing. Typically when I really am moved by a song it brings me to tears, but tonight I was like my mom and got goosebumps at a couple of points in the anthem. This happened as we rehearsed it and during the service. It is very rare for me to get goosebumps from music, but that was the norm for my mom. She found it somewhat embarrassing, but I always thought goosebumps was better than tears as it's less noticeable. The older I get the more easily I shed tears from music. They are the good kind of tears but still sometimes I wish they would stop. Tonight I shed tears AND got goosebumps at various points in the service. He is RISEN! Here's to hoping that Nadia is feeling better tomorrow as we're planning to go to the Country Cupboard for dinner with Paul's parents after church. I've been cleaning and mowing and such since we got home yesterday, but aside from making a batch of brownies last night I haven't done any cooking. I will get back in gear with cooking on Monday. I'm so, so grateful that we serve a RISEN Saviour!!! This is my mom's first Easter in glory with her Savior.