Tag Team: pre-Easter festivities

Friday was kind of a busy day.  Our church was doing an outside Good Friday service at noon and we had volunteered our yard.  The service consisted of six stations where people did scripture reading and the whole group moved from station to station throughout the yard.  Anyways, we woke up around nine and David got up and went outside to fix a pile of dirt in the backyard and he found that a tree had fallen over during the night!  It was an old dead tree that he’s been keeping his eye on for a while.  It’s way back in the backyard, not even close to the house, so we were just waiting for it to go.  Well, it fell sometime Thursday night and had broken into a bunch of pieces and was scattered throughout the backyard.  Fortunately it was so rotted that when it fell, most of it broke into smaller pieces and we could carry most of it and put it to the side.  It was a fairly easy clean up job and it only took David, Haley, and I about an hour to clear it up.  We left the bigger branches for David to chainsaw later.  Haley was thrilled to be helping.  She carried smaller sticks and logs and put them on the pile just like David and I were doing.  David made grimaces as he was carrying heavier logs and Haley kept asking, “daddy, are you okay?”  She was pretty concerned.  Emily played in her exersaucer while we worked.

After cleaning up the tree we came in and took showers and got ready for the day.  People started arriving just as we were finishing.  Most people arrived about ten to fifteen minutes before noon which worked out well because it gave us time to fellowship a bit.  After the service everyone was supposed to leave in silence so we had to get all of our conversation out of her systems.  Emily was getting fussy as the time for the service approached so I ended up putting her to sleep in her crib and then putting the monitor outside in case she woke up.  I'm sure no one minded the subtle white noise in the background... 

The service was barely over thirty minutes long so Haley had no trouble walking with us and staying quiet.  She kept picking flowers and messing around with sticks.  I had fed her lunch right before so I think that helped too.  As soon as the service was over I put Haley down for her nap.  I probably should have let her stay up longer, I forgot that she had slept in so late.  She didn't end up falling asleep until after one.  David went out to borrow Jon Creech's chainsaw so he could finish doing the tree.  Emily ended up sleeping about three hours and Haley slept two.  Emily woke up a couple minutes before Haley and once they were both up, we had a snack and then went outside.

David was afraid that Haley would want to help him and he was concerned because of the chainsaw but he needn't have worried.  She was perfectly content to watch him work from the safety of the picnic table.  She does not like loud sounds and the chainsaw was no exception.  We sat and watched him work for a long time.  At one point we tried on our Easter dresses and Haley decided she loves hers.  Mimi got it for her and she must know Haley's tastes exactly because as soon as I got it out she said, "me wear that."  She ended up wearing it for a while until she wanted to sit in this swing thing we have and she couldn't do it with a dress on.

David ended up working on that tree until after six.  We just stayed outside and kept watching.  Around six I came inside to start dinner.  Emily was getting fussy so I put her in the swing to sleep and then I turned on the Dora movie for Haley.  Then David came in and showered and we all had dinner.  After dinner we ran out to Walgreens to get some Easter candy and some detergent.  Walgreens was having a great sale on laundry detergent.  We also picked up the movie Lincoln from Redbox.  When we got home we put the girls to bed and then David and I watched Lincoln.  We should have looked at how long it was because that movie was almost three hours long.  It was pretty good though.  Then we went to bed.  Dave is going to blog for today...

We had baths Friday morning too

Still waiting for the blues to change...

Haley turns away when I get the camera out.  She was digging around in the dirt with that trowel...in her Easter dress

Sisters

I forced her to let me take a picture.  

She finally let me take the dress off so she could sit in here

Watching Daddy

Daddy working.  That cross was used for the Good Friday service.  You can see the tree that broke, I guess that's a little more than a stump left

This is all the stuff we piled up

I'm gonna write about today and Katelyn's gonna wrote about yesterday.
We woke up this morning (Saturday) and decided to take the girls out to the park for a little while.  We got up and ate breakfast and then headed out to the running trail.  We didn't have that much time since we had some people coming to weatherize the house at noon.  We ran about a mile with the girls in their strollers and let Haley play on the slide for a little while.  She also wanted to ride the swings for a bit.  It really wasn't that great of a day for the park since it had rained during the night and everything was wet.  It was kind of a shame since it wasn't that hot and it was kind of cloudy.  While we were at the park it began to clear up a little but got darker again once we got home.  As we were driving home around 11 the guys called to say they would be there soon.  Basically what happened is that last week Gwen, our neighbor, came by and introduced me to this guy who was there weatherizing her house.  She said she just called the number on the bottom of her electric bill and they referred her to this company who inspects your house and like seals it up with a big fan to tell where the leaks are or something.  Sounds like a scam until they tell you it doesn't cost anything because SWEPCO, the electric company, bills you each month and puts it into a fund for this type of thing.  Now it REALLY sounds like a scam!  Just kidding.  Basically the gas company...uh, uh, electric company pays these guys to come out and do this because it supposedly saves energy.  Anyway, they called and it was good we were heading home early because they got there well before noon.  I read Haley some Curious George while we watched the guys work.  Haley called both of them "Daniel" since they were both brothers (pronounced brothas).  They worked pretty quick and other than getting stuff a little dirty, I think they did a pretty good job.  They seemed really nice and I kind of wondered if they were Christians, at least one of them.  Emily ate lunch and began her nap while they were finishing up.  Haley ate after they left.  Then it was about 12:30 and we wanted to go to the Longview High School practice field because we saw some signs around town advertising a helicopter Easter egg drop.  Haley didn't really want to eat her pizza (by the way she requested pizza for lunch so we baked one up) until we told her that afterwards we would go see candy and a helicopter (which I explained was like an airplane).  She really wanted to go and reluctantly ate a piece of pizza.  What a crazy baby.  Then we got Emily and drove over to the high school, which is less than half a mile away.  We got up to the loop and saw the parking lot was super full, so we just parked there and walked across the street.  By this time it had gotten a little sunny and it was pretty warm.  There were two people dressed up as Easter bunnies dancing around.  Haley liked watching them.  Basically, one of the churches in Longview, Motion Church, put on this thing for the community.  There were bouncy houses and a hay ride and some cotton candy machines in addition to about 2500 people.  We saw two girls there that we see at the gym and they had T-shirts on from the church, so one of them was explaining it to us. Motion Church is about 2 years old and was started by a youth pastor from another church who was tired of seeing young post-college age kids leave the church and not come back.  She said it caters to 20-35 year olds.  We could tell because most of the people were young.  Also, a guy from the church walked up to me and I kind of recognized him and he kind of recognized me.  We couldn't figure out where we knew each other from until he said he had worked at KRS which is the hangar next door to mine at the airport. He told us last year they did it over by their church and only had like 400 people.  They were not expecting this many and had run over to Walmart to buy more eggs!  We also kind of randomly saw Richard, a guy from our church who works at the Longview News Journal.  He told us that his boss was like "No, don't go, it's not gonna be that big." and he told her "NO, I need to be there to cover it!"  Haha, this is breaking news in Longview!  Anyway, they had used police tape to block off one large square divided into quarters.  Each quarter was for a specific age group of children.  I took Haley over to the 1-3 year olds square as the helicopter neared.  It was fun seeing them dump eggs out of a helicopter.  Haley liked watching.  We were probably 4 rows of people back from the front  of the police tape.  When they said we could go in, we tried to go in behind everyone in front of us and I was kind of sad for Haley because I did not see a single egg on the ground.  I told Katelyn (who held back with Emily) later that some kids had like 10 eggs.  I thought that had it not been outreach but a more Christian crowd, people probably would have told their kids to share their eggs with those who had none.  Still, a lack of eggs for a child who's main food group is candy is an easy compromise for having people from all areas and socioeconomic backgrounds of Longview together in a church sponsored event.  While Haley and I were making our way back, I saw a lady holding two girls tightly to her who were crying.  She was saying something about losing her other girl so I asked if I could help.  I know too well the fear of losing your child!  She described the girl and I looked around.  I found a girl matching the description who was looking around as if lost.  I asked if she was looking for her mom and she said yes.  I tried to find the mom from before and couldn't. I thought "of course it's gonna work out that way!" Before I knew it, a different mom came and grabbed this girl and took her away.  I'm pretty sure they thought I was a creep.  I was holding Haley so I feel like that helps.  How many little black seven year olds in purple jumpsuits can there be?  I guess at least two!  Then I went to find Katelyn.  By that time, there were like 20 kids at the main tent with the MC looking for parents.  I felt a lot better and figured anyone with half a brain, parent or child, would end up there.  Then we went home and put Haley down for a late nap.  Emily stayed awake and I went outside to continue trying to section off a felled tree whose diameter at the bottom was more than two feet with a little 18 inch chainsaw.  I'm glad to not be a lumberjack.  Dr. Mason came by to pick up the cross we had used for Good Friday, and we went out to Target.  After a brief stop at Walmart, we went home and ate dinner before going back out to Chic-fil-a for some dessert and to let Haley play on the playground for a while to tire her out so she would go to bed early.  We have a sunrise service tomorrow so we gotta get to bed.

Haleyism:
I took Haley over to see the Easter bunny and the first thing she pointed out was his shoes.  I guess she thought it was an actual bunny and she was super confused about why it would be wearing black sneakers.

Emilyism:
Emily was not impressed with the helicopter.  She actually seemed annoyed by it.

Fireman on a Ladder

Emily at the park

Haley and Mommy

She did not need that coat...

Meeting the Easter bunny

We need some smiling lessons for these girls

Haley and I are in there somewhere looking for eggs

Heading home.  I love how Emily is holding on

It's a good thing Haley is small, I think Emily is taking up more than her fair share

She was pretending her flip-flop was a phone