After a fun (as fun as can be with a sick Mama and Kendrick) weekend in Humboldt, Easter Sunday morning was a bit of a whirlwind.
We started our day sleeping in a bit because we were so exhausted from our big weekend. It was a rough morning, to be honest. Kendrick was pretty miserable (turned out he had a nasty ear infection, which we found out the next morning), and I was really tempted to miss the Easter service, except then Mark reminded me that I had nursery duty...and he was scheduled to be an usher. We had planned to attend the Easter breakfast at church that our youth group puts on each year, but with how exhausted and worn down we were all feeling, we didn't think it was best to force interactions all morning...especially with our track record of eating anywhere but home with two squirmy boys. I took Cashel to the store to pick up some medicine for Kendrick and some doughnuts for breakfast (since I hadn't planned breakfast, and thought a sprinkly doughnut seemed more festive than a bowl of cereal).
This would be after the boys discovered their Easter baskets and Cashel downed approximately 22 jelly beans. We're stellar parents and all...
Sadly, Kendrick looked about like this for about 80% of the day :( The poor kiddo just wasn't feeling himself.
I was certainly on the rebound from my nasty (NASTY) cold, but I have to say that I was VERY thankful that there were only two kiddos in our church nursery that morning so that 1) I could just snuggle a very snuggly Kendrick the whole time, and 2) So that I didn't feel as bad having Cashel in with me, since Mark also was scheduled to usher, which left Cashel unattended during that time of the service.
After the service, I set up the tripod and snapped a few quick shots of our family together in the back yard before we loaded into the car and made our way down to Worthington for the day to celebrate with Mark's Dad, Pam and her folks and Jessi and Tyler.
Both boys actually napped on the way down, which was shocking! It took them a bit to wake up, and even then, neither were doing so great with the whole eating thing. I ended up hardly getting a hot bite, which was unfortunate, because it was all SO DELICIOUS!
I mean...Grandma Vi's ham sauce, people!! And twice-baked potatoes! Two of my favorites. But really, the parts I did get to eat were just phenomenal :) YUM :)
After lunch, we did a fun little Easter egg hunt (a big thanks to Tyler for hiding the eggs...and then in fairness to Cashel who re-hid them under a tree after he found them all).
It may have been a smallish group this year, but we sure enjoyed our time together. Granted, we were so wiped out that Kendrick and I stayed home sick the next day, but we had such a nice day in Worthington :)
A huge thanks to Dad and Pam for opening up their home and providing all the delicious food!
We had our annual Ropte GTG on Easter weekend, and oh.my.goodness! It was such a crazy zoo (as always), but SO MUCH FUN! This recap is long overdue in part because it just takes too darn long to go through the 447 pictures I took and weed through the duplicates and the ones that didn't turn out to get to the good stuff :)
Unfortunately, I felt like crap pretty much the entire weekend. I was sick. sick. sick. I really, truly thought that I was on the mend Thursday afternoon, but I was dead wrong. But even though I felt just plain awful, everyone had a great time, and oh man did those cousins have a blast together :)
We've added a little one to the bunch this year (yeah, I know - only ONE this year!), and sweet little Andrew was such a trooper in the midst of the crazy :) I was super bummed that I didn't get to snuggle him, but there was no way I was going to expose him to the crud I had. So I did my best to love him from afar :)
Dan, Sarah and their family of 7 arrived in the wee hours of the morning on Monday, but we didn't make it down to the farm until Thursday morning. And then, it just was this huge ball of crazy for the next two and a half days :)
I'm not about to do a play-by-play of the whole time (I'll save that for the book), but I definitely will highlight some of the funnest memories from the weekend :)
If you've been following my blog (or know me), then it doesn't come as a surprise that I come from a big family: I am 3rd in birth order of 6 kids (4 boys, 2 girls). We had all of us siblings together and almost all of the family together this time, aside from Elicia (Dave's wife), who didn't make it down, and Riley (Josh and Tiff's son), who was out of town. Unfortunately, by the time we realized we needed to take a picture of the Vinsands, Michael had already headed off to work, so we didn't get him in the family photos either, dangit!
It's also probably no secret to those of you who know me well and have kept up with the goings on in life that my Mama has had one heck of a rough year emotionally and physically. It was so nice to be able to all be home and spend some time with her! Her new addition is just gorgeous, and we're so glad to know that she has that space where it is quiet and calm when she needs her space now. She has been our rock for so many years, and we all just love her so much :)
The weather was so perfect while we were there, and the kids had a ton of fun playing outside together.
It makes my heart happy to see my boys loving their cousins so much. I'm sad that we're two hours away, but glad that we aren't further than that, as is the case on Mark's side of the family. Cashel talks about going back to the farm to see cousins at least 2-3 times a week.
Oh, and my amazing sister Amanda (seriously, guys - she's AH-MA-ZING!) also put together a fun Easter egg hunt for the kids (and in fairness, my brother Jason deserves props too, since he hid all the eggs), and they had such a blast finding them.
And my poor brother Dan deserves an award for taking on the role of the villain and getting the ever-living poo "beat" out of him by these ninjas. You don't want to mess with this team!
I just love these people SO very much! Sometimes it's hard in the midst of the chaos to even realize HOW much I love them in the moment, but my heart just overflows for this crew :) We are all such beautifully messy people who have been through SO much together through these years. I couldn't pick a more wonderful family, nor would I ever want to :)
We hope you had a joyous day celebrating with friends and family that we serve a RISEN KING, which gives us the hope of a living Savior, and a hope to spend eternity with him!
We had a crazy fun weekend at the Ropte farm with all but 2 of our Ropte family, and a nice, more relaxing day in Worthington today after church with Mark's Dad and family at their home (more to come on both when I finally kick this very VERY nasty cold I've had for going on a week now).
We are hopeful that this new week will bring better health and rejuvenation with more of the same weather! And also hopeful that Daddy steers clear of all these germy germs we've been dealing with.
