Day 29 - Easter

Easter Sunday - COVID-19 Style. Well this day is full of a lot of firsts so I thought it would be fun to make a list...

Showered and dressed in non sweatpants!

Things we have never done on Easter before:
- This is our first Easter in our new house!
- Grant got a haircut
- Zoom Heller Easter
- We all got up, showered, put on nice clothes for no other reason then it is Easter - ok I guess we actually do the every year, it just seems special this year!
- We didn't watch church in our jammies
- We hunted eggs, got ready, had a nice breakfast, Heller Zoom and then went to church (it was really nice and relaxed and not rushed like it sometimes is)
- Went for a 10 mile bike ride - rode home against the wind and spitting rain
- Sat in the hot tub
- Easter dinner, just the 4 of us

She might outgrow this dress before anyone sees it! It was supposed to be her first communion dress. The shoes will fit  me when she is done with them!

Very quiet day. Brandon struggled to just relax. He fixed the crank on our window and a drawer on the outdoor grill just so he could feel productive! Some of us relax easier than others!

It was so much fun hiding eggs in the new house. Grant found the golden egg. It had two $5 bills in it. After a brief moment of contemplation he said "I think I'd like to share the money with Lizzie". Good choice - Brandon put two bills in the egg as a test- he passed! There were no easter baskets this year. Instead we told the kids they could shop for something they really wanted.

We also Facetimed with Aunt Sandy and the Campbells. The kids had made catapults to launch Peeps so they had a competition. The Paulis won with 165 inches! We played Catan and I won!. We had agreed that Brandon had to get 11 points to win and the rest only 10. However, I would like the record to show he only had 9 at the end of the game ;)

The real cherry on the Easter Bunny cake came at bedtime. Although the kids did make us brownies sundaes which were delicious! I was tucking Grant in and he asked for the third time if we were the ones that hid the eggs. It was time. I responded with the standard "What do you think?" He grinned and nodded his head, yes. He was pretty quick with the follow-up question - Santa? Why do we have elves? When I told Elizabeth there were no follow up questions, she was way too upset about Santa to think about anything else! I think Grant just felt very witty for figuring it all out. He was not mad at all. I called the rest of the family in to let them know that Grant was in on the secret and we stressed the importance on keeping the spirit alive the ones that still do believe. Brandon also clarified the tooth fairy in case there was any question about that. We promised them that the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny and Santa will still come visit them and that it brings us joy to continue to do it for them. I honestly went to bed with such a sense of relief.

Sorry, dear Easter Bunny, but you have always been a little creepy and I had no idea how to loop you into the He has Risen - you know the real reason for Easter!! Of course we have some work to do there too. When I tucked Grant in Saturday I said, "Dude you know what is so cool about Easter? The tomb was empty" He said "Yeah, Jesus was alive right? There are so many names in the Bible mom, it is hard to keep them straight. Jesus, Bethlehem..." "Um honey, Bethlehem, is a location, not a person"  He also thought it was the last breakfast, not the last supper!

Having a conversation with Grant sometimes is very difficult. Let me just try to give you a very simple example. Auggie gets a special dental bone every morning. "Grant, did you give Auggie her bone?" Grant: "What do you mean?"  What do I mean?! I mean what I just asked - DID YOU GIVE AUGGIE HER BONE?  Sorry, I digress...

So Covid Easter was weird, but most of the days are. Nothing really seems normal. Depending on which news channel you watch you don't know if this is going to last until August or be done at the end of April. So many different versions of the same story. My bigger concern is that when we go back to what was our normal before, it will then feel abnormal too. Our physical environments are moving slow but our mental spaces are really in constant motion just trying to figure out how to manage all of this.

Easter Zoom

Ham, homemade rolls, au gratin potatoes and at the last minute we remembered we needed a vegetable!

Elizabeth and the Peep catapult 

Elizabeth dyed a few eggs while Grant made brownies. Yes she only got 3, and Brandon will eat them . A few weeks ago we couldn't get eggs so no more wasting eggs, even if they are cheap!