Easter

Easter was a truly glorious day!

Luckily we must have been one of the first stops on Mr. Easter Bunny's journey because at 3:15 AM I awake to Grant standing over me saying,

"mom, mom, can I open my baseball cards"
"what? what time is it Grant?"
"3:15"
"Yes, you can open them as long as you don't wake ANYONE else up then go back to BED!"

By 7 AM the rest of the kids were up and had opened their goodies and were making a breakfast of the candy in their baskets. Everyone bathed or showered and everyone but Jay, Cade and a very sick baby William headed of to the 9:30 services at church. Once we were finished with church we headed back home and then to my mom's for lunch.

She was in an unusually good mood. Could be that she knows if she pisses me off that I will leave, so things tend to stay civil! My brother and his wife even showed up with their dog, Scrappy. Of course that ticked Jay off...not that the dog was there, but that my mother gave more attention to the dog than her grandchildren! The kids were THRILLED with the baskets my mom made up for them, the boys were in heaven because she got them baseball cards and tennis balls! Sophie loved her coloring book and her VERY OWN package of markers!

We left my mom's house later than we were supposed to.....2:40 PM, so we were approaching Jay's mom's house a little later than the 3 PM start time for the egg hunt. I kept assuring the kids that they would wait for us to start the hunt, after all it was only 3:05 when we pulled onto her street, but NO, as we pull towards the house we see the kids HUNTING eggs...now if these were LITTLE KIDS I would have been fine, but my kids are amongst the youngest and there was only one kid UNDER 9 at the house when she started the hunt.....you have never seen my kids FLY out of the van so quickly and start scooping up eggs! The REASON???? My MIL puts $5 bills in about 5 eggs, $2 bills in many of the others, and change in others. Jacob came away the big winner in our family, snagging $11.61!

In years past, I used to let the fact that Jay's sisters really didn't talk much with me bother me, but as I have grown older and a bit wiser, I have decided to make the best of the day and put myself in charge of my own happiness. I spent some time talking to his sisters but then focus on conversation with my 19 year old neice who is in college and my 17 year old neice. After my older neice left, I sat and continued talking with my younger neice.

I was brokenhearted talking with her. She seems to be in so much pain and confessed that she thought of killing herself. I was floored...it wasn't like I was praticularly close to her, we only see each other a handful of times each year, and here this poor child was pooring her heart out to me. I kept asking her if there were adults in her life she felt she could talk to and trust and at first she said no, but then as we talked more (and I mean hours here) she finally came up with a list of people that she felt she could turn to in crisis.....of course I made her promise to call me if she needed help. Unfortunately things at her home are so broken down that approaching her mom with any other this would just make things worse. Of course anyone looking in from the outside would think the kid had a perfect life, she lives in an expensive house with an olympic size pool, got a brand new car at 16, goes to a great private school, gets good grades....but things are obviously not what they seem. Unfortunately so much of what she said echoed my own teen years, but because of that I feel I was able to give her some solid advise that she seemed receptive to hearing!

She headed home (did I mention she had come to my MIL alone because her mom and dad refuse to visit my MIL????) and I got to spend some time talking with my MIL and then we packed up and headed home. Jay was thrilled, she had made him some beef tongue (YUCK!) to bring home with him and she loaded the kids up with left overs!

We got home, got the car unpacked and settled in just in time for me to see the new episode of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES.....I just LOVE that show!