Always Running Behind

It will come as no surprise to my regular readers that I am once again behind on my blogging and have much to catch up on. So here goes:

Last week Nathaniel received his Wolf Award for Cub Scouts. We are so proud of him for his accomplishments and so glad he enjoys Scouting.

At the Pack Meeting, he and Chris participated in a recycling activity -- they had to find new uses for old items. Later we ran a recycling relay against the Stephens family; they won of course, because I run like about as fast as a glacier. Oh well; it was fun!


Here's Nathaniel being presented his award by Scoutmaster Scott Bingham.


Affixing the special "mom pin" on his old mother.

Way to go, son! I'm so proud to be your mom. I'm constantly amazed by your capacity to learn and to do things for others. You are a remarkable young man. (who is growing up too fast!)

Later that afternoon we had an Easter egg hunt, and some neighborhood kids came to join in. It was a lot of fun. After the hunt we made egg salad and had sandwiches.







We wanted to downplay the whole candy thing this year in favor of teaching the kids more about why we celebrate Easter. I bought only a minimal amount of candy and small bowls instead of the enormous baskets that all the stores have.

When I went into the kids' room to wake them Sunday morning, this is what I saw:


So I roused them and sent them out into the living room. This is what I then saw:

Eventually they woke up enough to check out their goodies.


Lindsey and Bradley seemed pleased enough with what they found. Nathaniel, on the other hand . . . well, just look at his face. He said to me later: "This is a little disappointing compared to past Easters." We proceeded to have a good mother/son talk about the Resurrection. He's so funny.

Evidently Joseph didn't like what he got, either.


We took Joseph to church that day, and he looked mighty dapper.


We put off taking family Easter photos because Joseph was having a fit to eat by the time we got home. (This was due to Chris hogging him all through church and not letting me feed him.) So of course the kids wanted to change clothes and eat and we just never got it together and took any pictures. I'm sad about that.

But I did get this one of Nathaniel that is pretty cool. On his own, he followed the directions in his Scout book and tied his tie. You see he didn't get the length quite right, but the knot was a work of art! I was so impressed with him.


Some random cute stuff:







Ahhh. . .


. . . choo!!!