Happy Easter!

Kevin is finally much improved after a horrible 2 weeks of illness. He had/has a virus with lots of agonizing coughing.  Of course the kids and I got it as well, but he was by far the worst.

Yesterday was Easter.  Our holidays are weird.  I'm not someone who does well with elaborate parties of any kind, so Easter is never fancy. Nor is Christmas, really.  I feel like life is so strenuous that adding on a big party is TOO MUCH.

Usually Kevin's mom fills in the gaps on holiday celebrations. She blessedly lives nearby and brings over a pile of food to augment our turkey or ham or whatever.

She also prepares the bazillion eggs for the kids' egg hunt.

But THIS year, she was driving back from Connecticut with our niece on Easter!  They went to New York City and saw a Broadway show on Saturday. Very cool. Our niece has been in Connecticut the last few months doing an internship.

So sometime this week we'll have an egg hunt. The hunt is just fun and doesn't have a whole lot to do with Jesus, so having it later is just fine. I know the symbols can be tied into the Easter story and indeed we just did a Resurrection Egg hunt, which tells the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus through objects in eggs.

Anyway, we went to Sunday school yesterday morning (me and 6 of the kids) and it was great.  A speaker introduced a short video on Holy Week.  It was well done, taking bits from a movie about Jesus' life and interspersing it with lots of archaeological evidence.  It was excellent.

Today has been quite strenuous.  A friend asked me to watch her 1 year old, which I did.  This little girl was probably intimidated by being at our house but she was good as gold.  By that, I can only assume she isn't ALWAYS that angelic.  Rose is a total terror in comparison. But of course Rose is usually calmer at someone else's home. Anyway, it was fun.

Then I was trying to take a nap (I've not had as much sleep the last 2 weeks with Kevin's illness) and in the middle of TRYING, Sarah and Daniel started tearing around the house, which got me out of bed. Then I ran off to the chiropractor.

Kevin and I are going on a 20th anniversary trip soon. So exciting. We're going to the beach. Tropical beach.  My parents are watching the children.

These Are the Weeks That Try Moms' Souls

So we are sick again.

Kevin has been coughing hard for more than 2 days now, resulting in almost no sleep. Poor guy!

Other people have been sick too. Our big girls are already through this stupid illness.  They were quite miserable but are on the upswing.

I've been home a lot this week.  Which is fine, but it is hard when kids are sick and I can't fix it.  Rose ran a fever much of today and kindly threw up on Lydia twice.  As usual, Lydia handled it very well. She's stoic about such things.

Weather got super weird in the last couple of days, too.  We had a few very nice days and did a lot of playing outside (those of us who weren't sick at the time.)

Yesterday there were very bad storms rolling through.  Those of us at home hid in our tornado shelter downstairs, and the 3 kids at youth group found themselves sitting in a hall waiting for the tornado warning to pass.

And incredibly, a tornado did pass, though north of us, in Enon, where Kevin's mom lives.  It was an F0 and not strong, but there were dramatic winds as part of the storm system and many trees went down in Enon, including part of one of Mom's trees.  And shingles, a bunch of them, came off her roof.

A nearby barn was badly damaged.

Today it has rained dismally all day.

I keep balancing all that needs to be done with the need to get adequate rest, as I hope I don't get seriously sick from this stupid thing.

We will see.  Feel free to pray for us.