Happy Easter

Happy Easter!

I think this little family has come a long way this week. When I asked the girls on Monday what Easter was about they both independently responded, “eggs!” Then came family night, morning scripture study, and making Easter Story Cookies from a recipe my mom sent over which uses the ingredients to talk about the Savior’s death and resurrection. I think we have a better grasp of the holiday now. You can test them and see, but I think the girls will say that we celebrate Easter because Jesus was resurrected. We still dyed eggs and did an Easter egg hunt with our friends, but hopefully the significance of the day was not completely lost.

After the news of our early start date last week, I spent the next several days spinning my wheels. I knew there were a million things I should be working on and I felt like I was working really hard but the truth be told, I hardly accomplished anything! Thanks to Josh and my family I feel like we have a few things in place now, enough to move forward anyway. We chose the company we will use to move and store our things and we picked a day to load up the truck. Our time in Philly is limited--kind of sad, kind of exciting, kind of scary, kind of stressful, kind of fun.

Friday of this week my cousin, Laura Krantz, came up from Washington, D.C. to visit. We took her to Longwood Gardens in the morning to see the tulips and then in the afternoon we went on a Philly sandwich quest. She had the current issue of Saveur, a culinary magazine, which just happened to have an article highlighting sandwiches in Philadelphia. We chose three different sandwiches from three different shops, divided them up among us and had a fun family style dinner at Reading Terminal Market. It was great to see Laura and catch up on the last...oh, 15 years or so. Laura is an editor at NPR and is engaged to be married this Fall. We are so grateful she took the time to come up here. The girls were excited to meet her and tried their best to impress. Josh and I had a great time asking her about the inner workings of NPR. It was delightful to re-establish a connection after so many years. As different as our lives are there are still unmistakable marks of our common heritage: similar humor, using playful threats like “I’ll tie your arms in a knot,” signing notes xoxo, and enjoying card games to name a few. Here’s to family!

We had a classic prayer in Sunday School this week. “We are grateful, Father, that the temple is going to be built here in Philadelphia and we know all things are done in Thy time. BUT, if it’s possible could you hurry it up a little!” I thought Josh was going to have to excuse himself. ☺ Our ward. We were back to no Young Women today. Actually, there was one there, but I couldn’t get her to come inside for the lesson, my last lesson which I had prepared especially for Easter. [sigh]

On a happier note, we have had some great times with friends this week. Jinhee, my dear friend from South Korea, hosted a lunch for all the LDSSA ladies in Center City. We let the kids go wild in her toy room and enjoyed a rare opportunity to chat. We have such a fun group of student friends here. We also had an Easter Egg hunt as an LDSSA group. Kate has the concept now. I didn’t see her from the moment they said go until she returned with a basketful of eggs. Jane was more interested in collecting sticks than eggs. I also spent a day creating with my kindred spirit, Lori. We made Spring skirts for our girls. The pattern said it would take 2-3 hours. With all the interruptions of motherhood, we sewed all day and finished one skirt at 11:30 p.m. I’m still working on mine. The material point, however, is that we had an entire day (she even slept over) to talk and be together. The project was a secondary achievement, although it did turn out wonderfully well.

Kate has learned how to use Ping!, a texting app on our phones. She knows she can’t bother me while I am typing my letter, but I have been receiving a string of messages from Josh’s phone:

Kate: Mom lets go pik up Makenna

Mom: It is Sunday, bug.

Kate: Evin if it is Sunday

Mom: You are cute.

Kate: Bot i rele wont to go pik up Makenna

Mom: I know, Little One.

Then she came up to talk to me. I sent her downstairs to go see if the bread has risen to the top of the bowl. She texted me: “Not kwit.”

Jane is in a really cute stage. She is figuring out how to jump and skip. Any time she is on a flat surface she is jumping and dancing. It’s so cute to watch because she bends her head down in order to see her feet leave the ground. After the Easter egg hunt yesterday, we returned home with helium balloons. Jane would let her balloon go and float up to the ceiling and then run over and tug on us until we came to see her balloon. “It’s magic! It’s staying up there, Mom!” Maybe it’s magic that her feet can leave the ground too.

Josh only has two more days of class! We are sneaking in a trip to New York City as a family this week when he should be studying for finals. He’s got to have some sort of vacation before retirement.