A Blessed Easter

Happy Easter! He is Risen! (He is risen indeed!)

Wonderful music and worship at church

A delicious ham 'n lamb dinner on the patio...

...the boys prefaced it with an appetizer of an entire can of olives (just the two of them).

Fun family times at home

Ready for the little kids' egg hunt.

Luke on a collecting spree...

...while Patrick discovers that eggs grow on trees!

The big kids' egg hunt.

Moving Days

Heather and Jared are mostly moved in now; just a few boxes remain here in the closet.Patrick welcomes you to his new house.Come on in!Making things comfy.
Part of the moving crew hoping for a lunch break.
Lets' eat! The dining room is barely big enough to hold the table.

Granddad puts together Patrick's crib....

...so that Luke can get back to playing.

Boys horsing around.

Busy Spring

We're in activity overload right now.

Today is moving day #1 for the foursome. They have an apartment awaiting them about 12 miles away, not too far from Jared's new office. Today Heather and I will move as many boxes as we are able, using my van. Then tomorrow the rental truck will be packed with all the heavy things. And helpers are scheduled to be here bright and early.

Palm Sunday evening is our church's Seder banquet. I'm on the committee; my main responsibilities are recruiting helpers for all areas, and getting the tables decorated and set. I have identified tasks for 25 helpers so far. I'm pricing paper tableware, and I'm hoping we can finally buy real metal flatware instead of plastic.

Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday are special events for childrens' Sunday School. I have a number of extra jobs to get done for both of those Sundays.

Our annual garage sale is tentatively scheduled for late April. Half the garage is full already, awaiting pricing and setting up on tables. It will be a big job as usual, but I expect all sellers to help with pricing and set up. My rule is: anything I have to price becomes mine.

House renovations begin the day after H and J are fully moved out. I promised myself that I will take this opportunity to scrape all the remaining popcorn texture from our ceilings. I will start in the master bedroom and bath/closet, and then proceed to the hall, the living room, the dining room, and then finally the little back hall. After scraping, I will need to patch and sand (maybe several times; it depends on my scraping skill). Then I will prime and paint the bare drywall in all of the listed rooms. Then I will move on to paint the walls in all of the same rooms, plus the kitchen and family room (that's most of the house). After the walls comes the trim. Next, there's a little electrical work that needs to be done professionally. And then, finally, I will get to start fresh on decorating the master bedroom. I hope that will include some new furniture, as well as new window coverings and bed linens.

Maybe I will finish by Christmas.

Brothers

This week our weather has been so lovely; we have eaten meals outside several times now.

The boys have been having a grand time in the backyard. But they are a little too brave in their explorations ~ they love to climb the stairs and venture out on the steep hill and across the top of the high retaining wall. Nanas don't like to see them up there alone.

They each have their own tricycle now and they love to ride all over the patio, one chasing the other. Patrick can't reach the pedals so he runs his little feet faster than a blur across the patio. It is really funny.

My New Job

My "Office"

I'm the third family member to get a new job recently: I started in March. I'm working about five hours a week at church, as assistant to the Childrens' Ministries director. My responsibilities are varied, but first the backstory.

Four years ago, our church started a new Sunday School program for Pre-K through grade 5. It takes hours of prep for our 100 students; too much work to expect volunteer teachers to accomplish during the week, and then teach their class on Sunday morning. Our director wisely asked a team of ladies to stay late on Sunday afternoons to help do the preps for the following Sunday. I am part of that team. As time went on, we saw that there was still a lot of work to be done (some weeks needing more time than others), so two years ago I volunteered to get a headstart on it and work during the second hour of church in preliminary preps. Then in March I was hired to do even more of the work.

Now, my duties for the paid portion of my work include:

• Make photocopies of worksheets, memory verses, teaching aids, and craft projects
• Laminate, cut apart, and punch memory verse cards
• Make sample crafts so teachers know how they are to go together
• Color in some of the b/w photocopies to add a little color to hold interest
• Measure and cut yarn or string for crafts (and other time-consuming preps)
• Cut out crafts projects for the youngest children
• Shop for elements needed for crafts
• Hunt up props for the Bible stories
• Keep the colored pencils sharpened
• Keep the tape dispensers filled
• Redo the file system in my spare time
• Make new file folders
• Refile unused supplies for the next go-round
• Process all unsolicited donations: decide if we want it then file it, or dispose of it
• Keep the resource room clean and orderly

For the Easter season, I have a few added responsibilities:

• Bake 14 dozen palm branch cookies
• Design a paper lamb centerpiece for children to recreate
• Solicit free paint stirrers from Home Depot
• Make a "palm branch" sample craft for children to copy
• Find a source for inexpensive hot cross buns without the fruit

There is probably more too, but I can't think of it right now.

It's a fun job that I enjoy. I like the varied activities I do, and I like the opportunity to use my creativity. I also like to be able to clean out and purge!

David's News

Amidst all of the April Fool's Day fun, I'll post something that is not a joke. I'm excited to be starting at Symantec (the largest security software company, for those who don't know) in a couple of weeks, as an information security consultant. I'll still be physically working at Coca-Cola Company, helping to manage their threat and vulnerability management side of information security. And I'm happy to not be "just" the intern now!

Mom adds: This is a salaried, real career job. David managed to land this while he still has over a year left before he graduates. Congratulations David!