Mother-heart Moments - Thank You Dear Father!

Father has given me a few power-filled moments this weekend when I felt an overwhelming gratitude for the Plan that He has for me. It is during moments like these when I am so grateful for my Saviour and His Atonement and the Ressurection.

I has been enough years since my girls passed away that sometimes I have to count to remember where we're at. It has been 4 1/2 years. And then, there are moments like the one I had yesterday during Sacrament meeting when time doesn't exist.  I was sitting there listening to the speaker when I was suddenly overcome with the feeling of an aching mother heart. In my minds eye I could see myself sitting there in a pew filled with five little bodies. My girls would be dressed in their beautiful new Easter dresses... It was so powerful I actually had to turn my head to wake myself to reality again. - Someday I will have those little girls with me ...- Someday...-  Thank you Father for the Ressurection!

That night Leif and I were visiting as we were falling asleep. Leif told me that he had a "Missing" moment that afternoon. He was watching a video on YouTube about Christ's life. Our daughter Leora is named after the story in the bible where Christ raises the little girl from the dead. He says "Talithiacumi" to the girl. This is Leora Lynn's middle name. Leif said he was filled with a longing for the girls during that video. Yes, I do find it neat and interesting that we were both overcome at most likely the same moment in time even though we were not together. I had not told Leif about my experience for fear of breaking down in tears. The tears came when he opened his heart to me. - Thank you Father for the Ressurection!

Today I spent the day cleaning and organizing our newly rearranged home. One of the main tasks that I had to tackle was to go through all of my baby clothes and items. We will not be having any more babies. Not for several years anyway. And even that is a slim chance. And if you know me at all, you know that this fact leaves me with an aching mother heart. I want more babies. But my body was not built to bring forth many babies on this earth. While going through these clothes for the last time in preparation to give them away I found myself becoming more and more heartsick about the whole thing. Luckily my precious gems came in the house to distract me and remind me of what I have in the Here and Now. Thank You Dear Father, for the Here and Now! And Thank You for Eternity!

How This Week is Going...

I have posted HERE, HERE, and HERE about my plans for this week (the week leading up to Easter Sunday.) Now I will reveal how the week has really played out. At least the big things.

Well, you can read the other posts for Days 1-3. Wednesday (day 4) it was my hope to color Easter eggs using natural sources for the dye. Instead it turned out to be a "Mama Bear" day (Leif took me out for dinner to get me away, and saved my sanity.) But I did NOT get to the eggs. So I did them today (day 5). I will make a separate post about that. Let's just say it's a lot of work and mine didn't turn out like I had hoped. But it was fun (for me.) We were supposed to have a special dinner tonight. We didn't. My greatly anticipated clothes dryer arrived today! Leif spent the afternoon and evening setting my new laundry nook up.WAHHOOO!! (More on that later.)

So tomorrow is Friday (Day 6.) I hope and will plan on a nice dinner tomorrow using my China. We will watch a video or two about our Saviour and His Atonement. I am making that commitment...  Then Saturday (Day 6) we get to give the kid's their Easter baskets. QUESTION: Has anyone else had a really hard time finding chocolate eggs this year. I haven't even been able to find a Cadbury, let alone a Snickers or Caramel Egg. We live in a small town, but Seriously, what is an Easter basket without Those amazing treats!!!!??  Saturday our town has an wonderful Easter egg hunt. I look forward to it every year. In fact, this is the last year for the lady who has put it on for the past nine years. I wonder what will happen in the future?

Okay, I was feeling way side tracked from my original plans. But maybe we're not so off base after all.  Tomorrow Dinner. Saturday Baskets, Hunt, and Picnic. Sunday Church and Family Dinner.

I just remembered what I really wanted to do to try and help the lesson of the Atonement sink in. The candy making idea. Making candy and not eating ANY of it, and giving it away. I think that would be a fine Post- Easter home school lesson. So I won't stress and will plan it next week.

Coloring Easter Eggs with Natural Dye

Stay tuned folks, because tomorrow we are Going Natural!:) Yep, we're going to go crazy with natural Easter Egg dye. I'm going to invite friends over and we're going to make a grand ol' mess!
Look here for Natural Easter Egg Dye Recipes and Leaf Print Ideas - Leaf Print Tutorial, Old Orchard Juice Dye.

RESULTS: 
This was a really good experience. It makes me want to keep trying to get it just right. The eggs didn't turn out like I had hoped. But in the long run I got some fun results. The majority of the eggs that I used are our farm fresh duck eggs. I am wondering if that might be why the dye didn't soak into the eggs very deeply. The shells tend to be more smooth then chicken eggs. They also have some type of film over the egg that I think store bought eggs don't have. The dye soaked into the film and then scraped or washed off (VERY frustrating!) However, when my boys recolored the eggs in store bought dye, that dye worked and it also brought out the leaf prints that I had made. They didn't show up until then.

The natural dyes that worked the best for me were the Tumeric, Old Orchard juice, and Blueberries. And these dyes worked really well as fabric dyes too;) My towels have the rainbows to prove it!

Word of advise: This is not a project for kids under 10 years old. It's very time consuming and a lot of trial and error. It ended up being an all day, all night project for me (with a few hours here and there in between.)

Christ's Last Week Days 1-3 (Home School Happenings)

You may note from my previous post that we are studying the last week of Christ's life on earth this week. I wanted to fit the true meaning of Easter into our home school. Today was a good meaningful short and sweet school day. I wanted to share what we did. I planned ahead and then changed things as needed.

Today I printed out THIS. It is another booklet that gives a play by play of Christ's last days on earth. It gives me the scripture references that I need to actually read things from the scriptures as we talk. It also gives a short paragraph about each day. I cut the pages out and stapled just the days together with the beautiful picture as the cover page.

We then reviewed Days 1 and 2 (since we're on day 3). Then I made a few lines on the back of the booklet pages. Jakob then wrote the following on each page: Day 1 Hosanna! Day 2 Temple, Day 3 Parables. And we will of course continue this as the days go on. (Prior to this activity Jakob passed off a Scholastic Reader for a sticker on THIS fantastic Reading Sticker Chart.) Anyway, after practicing his very best handwriting skills we moved into the lesson activity for the day. We read the parable of The Ten Virgins from the bible. Then we watched the following two YouTube videos. He really enjoyed this and the spirit was strong. After watching we talked about the meaning of the parable and how it applies in our life. I then asked Jakob to tell the story back to me. This is a struggle for him. But once he got in the right mindset he did great!

Short and Sweet and Covered a lot!
Here's the great YouTube videos called: They That are Wise: Music Video and PARABLE of 10 Virgins.

The Last Week of Jesus' Life on Earth - Home school and Family Plans -

This year I have hope of helping my boys understand the meaning of the Easter Celebration just a little bit more clearly. Home schooling will be very helpful in this regard.  Here are our plans for this upcoming week.

MONDAY:  We will use our MBP curriculum which just happens to be about special holidays this week. We will make a Holiday Book. I will then introduce THIS activity. It's a day by day walk through the last week of Christ's Earthly Ministry. We will then watch a couple Mormon Messages on YouTube about Easter.
TUESDAY: We will read and explore the parables that Jesus taught.
WEDNESDAY: We will do an Easter egg decorating activity. I'm hoping to make dye from natural sources.
THURSDAY: (Papa is home all day!:) We will be having a "Last Supper" meal together drinking grape juice, eating Quinoa, and chicken, eaten on my fine China. Leif and I will help the kids understand what this meal was all about. We will also wash the boys' feet (with plenty of giggles I'm sure;) and we will try to help them understand the example of service that was set by Christ.
FRIDAY: Friday we will read about the Atonement and watch a short video. We will also make homemade chocolate candies to give away the next day (we won't eat ANY, this will be tough and give us a chance to talk about the selfless sacrifice our Saviour made for us. Although I am well aware that the sacrifice doesn't compare. We do our best right!?  
SATURDAY: This is our traditional Easter Bunny celebration. Our town holds a great Easter egg hunt and the kids get to find their baskets. I think we'll hide them outside this year. It's so beautiful right now. I'm pondering a picnic at our local cemetery. I know it sounds strange. But it is the most peaceful place in the town and it could give us a moment to remember why the Ressurection is so special for our family.
SUNDAY: We will do THIS Activity (Easter Egg Lesson) to give a quick but fun review of the week and it's wonderful meaning. And we will rest.

Easter Weekend Rundown

Leif's school and work made Easter Weekend their Spring Break. So that made our weekend extra long. We've tried to enjoy the time together as we also focused on the Easter celebration.

Our little family has the tradition of doing the "silly" part of Easter on Saturday so we can focus on the true meaning of Easter on Sunday.

Friday started out the fun this year. We woke up bright and early and went to our local plant nursery to choose our first three baby chicks (named: Bessy Boo, Sally, and Sue.) Our main batch of chicks won't arrive for another couple of weeks. But we were excited and had to take the opportunity to get a few from the local nursery while they still had them. They are really cute and a lot of fun. It will be interesting to see how it is to have a whole lot more then three... It will be fun! Friday night we went out for pizza with Leif's parents. We were all going to meet up afterwards to color Easter eggs. But right before heading up to our house Leif's dad was cutting a branch off of a willow tree and cut his finger. He had to go get stitches:( So we painted eggs with just our little family. We decided to paint eggs this year instead of the traditional coloring.

Saturday morning we woke up to silly fun-filled Easter baskets. They had real lettuce in them instead of the traditional plastic grass. Jakob was thrilled to find a bag of Army Men to play with, Silly song music CD's, and a huge Hidden Pictures coloring book. The fun part was the fact that Papa's bed time story the previous night had all come true! Just like in the movie "Bed Time Stories."

We were worried that it would rain Saturday morning during the town Easter egg hunt. But luckily the storm blew over in the middle of the night and we didn't have rain to contend with. Jakob had a good time running around gathering as many eggs as his little hands could pick up. It was a short hunt. But not a disappointing one (as usual!)

Caleb woke up with another ear infection Saturday morning. I was SOOO Bummed! It drained me of my cheerful energy. I feel bad about that! I was no fun at all Saturday. Luckily I have a forgiving family! We were going to get together with Leif's sister and her kids Saturday. But she was sick too. It really put a damper on the whole day. But we're over that day now and there's a more cheerful outlook in the home.

Sunday morning was like every other Sunday morning when your meeting starts at 9:00AM. Rush to get ready and get to church on time! It took me until the middle of Sacrament meeting to get over my grumbling spirit and allow the beauty of the day to penetrate my "Moody Mama" heart. Once that happened I was able to feel of the healing touch of the Lord. Leif sang in the choir with his parents. They sang one of my favorite songs: Beautiful Savior. I LOVE that Song! It paints such a beautiful picture as it is sung.

Sunday afternoon we got together with Leif's mom and hid the final Easter eggs that she had for Jakob. They were Dinosaur eggs. So Jakob was in heaven. He started hiding the eggs himself while we were playing with the chicks on the grass. He got distracted and came over to tell us something. Just as he came we had noticed a bee flying around us. We were getting up to move when Jakob came to me in a bit of a daze and said "the bee was behind me." I didn't think too much of it until he held up his thumb and again said, "The bee was behind me." Then I registered what had happened. The bee had stung his little thumb. It hadn't really hurt initially. But by the time I registered what had happened it was HURTING him. Poor little Jakob! I have written about his true low pain thresh hold. Well, that came into play full throttle! I took him into grandma to see what they had in the cupboard for bee stings. Just as we got some litocaine on his finger he informed me that he was sick. We rushed to the bathroom where he lost his lunch. The very scary part was the color of his face, or the lack thereof. He was so whitish-green! I have never seen anything like it. Leif held him up so he didn't fall in the toilet face first. From there we laid him on the couch and gave him some benedryl and a Popsicle. He was so sick from it all! I felt really bad for him. I have cared for many, many children in my life so far. But I have Never seen a child react to pain in such a way as Jakob. His reaction is far from "in his head." It is a literal genetic issue that he inherited. But grandma Baron said that even Leif didn't react as extreme as Jakob. I am always amazed when he has an episode... Luckily he was fine after a short while and we went out and finished our hunt. As you can see, it was fun!

Leif's mother made a wonderful feast for us that afternoon. We were able to enjoy it with grandpa and grandma Dixon. MMM!

That evening we had a little bit of silly fun. I have really missed a bath tub for a long time. My good friend Harmony used a pool while she was pregnant to relax in. Her hubby rigged up a hose that can be connected to the shower. Well, we borrowed it. We set it up in the kitchen last night. It was actually fast and easy to set up and drain out. Jakob had a great time playing in "the tub." We've concluded that it will be a worthy investment. That night Leif and I watched a great show called Amazing Grace. We highly recommend it!!

Spiritually speaking this weekend was deep. I was overcome with deep thoughts that would not relent. Through prayer and a long talk with Leif I am feeling much better. But wow!...

We took the time each night before bed this weekend to read about the Easter story. One night we read it out of a story book. Another night we read it out of our big family Bible. It was neat to take the time to reflect on the true meaning of Easter.