It’s Friday. Not Monday. Which is good. Fridays are good. Not as good as Saturdays, but better than Mondays.

We have a family movie night at church tonight (Johnny Ling0-which was originally an old Mormon movie, but redone to modernize it–it’s out to rent). So that’ll be fun.

Due to Pierce’s nightmare issue, he is now sleeping in the baby’s room on a futon mattress. He flat out refuses to sleep in his room anymore.  Apparently he doesn’t have nightmares when he sleeps in my room on the floor or in his sister’s bed (during the day when she’s not home).

So last night at 9:15 pm, dh and I decided it’s not worth it. If he’s that scared, he can sleep somewhere else. A phase is a phase and he’ll grow out of it. And if not, in another year, baby Dean will be moving up to his room in bunk beds anyway and Pierce’ll want to go with him. So problem solved. No more screaming fits at night!

So today’s Friday. I’m so glad it’s Friday.

My mom sent this to me….very true

Baby boy learned how to crawl up stairs today!! I was sitting on the floor and knew he was there, but didn’t realize he was 2 stairs up getting a bag of plastic Easter eggs.

I took him down, and of course, up he went again. And giggled at me. “Hah, mom! Look what I can do!”

Oh, and now ds1 is calling him “Bean” (rhymes with Dean)

We had our Passover dinner last night with a friend and his daughter (she’s 18). His wife couldn’t make it unfortunately but I was happy they came. We had the typical Passover foods…fruit & nut mixture (haroset), bitter herbs (maror), roasted eggs (beitzah) and unleavened bread (matzah).  I lit candles and we sat on the floor. His dd had to leave after a bit and then I sent Gab and the boys upstairs and the 3 of us just talked for awhile. It was really a nice night.

They’re coming back tomorrow (Saturday) night to have the Jerusalem dinner we always do the night before Easter and go over the scriptures/stories for that. We’re having fish, chicken, cucumber salad, cheese, olives and grapes. All of which are typical foods eaten 2000 years ago at meals.

Tomorrow morning I’m in charge of and egg hunt at church for the kids. 2 families aren’t gonna make it, so I only had to buy and fill 20 dozen eggs (one for each kid).  Other wise it would have been 29 dozen I was smart and delegated the food and invitations out, so I only have to do the eggs.

Hopefully tonight dh and I will be able to get out without the kids to get their Easter bunny stuff.

I love this week before Easter…it makes the day that much more special and fun.

A few years ago, my mom sent me an Easter book. It has 7 days worth of scriptures, each day a day in Christ’s last week. So it’s like we’re walking in his footsteps for a week. Then for every day, it has activities, games, or service projects. It’s really neat. I think this will be our 4th year.

On a few days (like Thursday-Passover), it lists the type of foods Christ likely ate and incorporates food into the lesson.

It’s so fun because it teaches the kids the more serious side of Easter and also teaches them who He was. Especially the foods.  It makes the whole “story” real. And when all the Easter bunny stuff is behind them, they’ll still have a week of Easter stories, foods, and activities to enjoy.

So on Thursday, I’m going to list the Passover foods and the recipes so you can try them out, too.

Ds was playing with his drums this morning. Nothing big and major, just little kid ones.

I guess he got bored and thought it would be fun to push them down the stairs.

He went down one section, then laughed and got ready to push it down the next section.

He then pushed and looked at my dh and said, “Look, Dad, drum roll!”

Goofy little squirt!

I’ve mentioned in the past that ds has been having nightmares.

Last night was interesting.

He came down and I asked him, “Did you have a nightmare?”

“Someone tickled me!”

“You had a dream someone tickled you?”
“Can I sleep with you?”

He didn’t confirm it had been a dream, so I was curious. This morning I asked him about it again. I asked if it was a bad dream and he said no, a light on  his bed tickled him. I asked if it was his lamp on his shelf. He said, no, it was on his bed. He did say it was pretend this morning, that it was not real.

Very strange one this time.

My parents always say their grandchildren (they have 14) keep them young.

I think this only applies to grandparents.

If they’re your own kids, somehow they make you older. Or feel that way, anyway!

Between taking my dd to all-county band practice, to 3-yr-old time-outs and nightmares, to a very squirmy-all-over-the-place-and-crawly baby, I’m not feeling all that young!

So I’ve come up with a solution that could work for everyone. My parents can come stay with us for a few weeks. They can let the kids work their “make us younger”  magic on my parents.

Then dh and I can go on our own vacation and regain some of our energy!

Now I just need to find the cash and convince my parents….

My poor little guy has had nightmares time to time. Once it was alligators in the living room.

But a few nights ago it was an eagle beak dancing in his room. No eagle attached, just a big, scary beak. Kinda freaky, huh?

He woke up 2 nights ago and went in to his sister’s room and told her.  He climbed into her bed and after he fell asleep, she tried to move him back. He woke up and cried, very scared to go back to bed. So she put him back in her bed and slept in his the rest of the night.

Yesterday he went upstairs for naptime and seemed really quiet, which is unusual. Normally he just plays really loudly for a couple hours. I went up and found him in dd’s bed with a few books; he had fallen asleep. When he woke up, I asked him why he was sleeping in his sister’s bed. He was still afraid of the eagle beak!

I took him into his room and we looked around for it. We talked about real and pretend and dreams, and logically, he understands. But the emotion dreams contain is so powerful. He even looked under his bed and confirmed no beak under there.

Last night dh went to put him in bed. He started crying pretty quickly and wouldn’t talk to dh about what was wrong. Eventually dh brought him down and we were able to calm him down. He was still afraid of the eagle beak. I think he was afraid he’d dream it again more than it being there.

We put him to sleep in my bed and he woke up fine this morning. Luckily no bad dreams.

A couple nights ago dh and I were discussing our trip this summer. I had been doing hotel research and noticed that many hotels’ prices were for 2 adults, 2 kids. Any more was extra.

We were saying we’re gonna have to get used to that kind of stuff, since we’re planning on having 4 kids. To us, that doesn’t really seem like a large family; 5 or 6 or more would. But to the standards of the US, 4 kids is.

So I’m curious…what do you consider to be a large family?

Dh got another weird text message a couple nights ago and sent it to my email.

I’m glad he told me what it was, not just the message, or he’d have been sleeping outside in the rain and mud.

Yo  im so hungry cant u bring me food now lol the other girls are eating and its maken me hungry