A White Easter

I guess it's totally possible that I could be referring to a snowy Easter but I am so happy to report that it was a beautiful day and spring really does seem to be on it's way.  These are the glory days in Texas and I'm trying hard not to miss them. The flowers popping up in my yard and buds appearing are helping a little, but it's still hard.  Give it two months, I remind myself.  In two months I will not be missing it.

We know this is not our forever home, so I was really trying to live with the fresh beige paint, generously covering every wall and ceiling in the entire house.  But after a few months I gave up and hired painters.  I'm usually a DIYer but these projects were beyond my scope, especially considering it's taken a full blown operation  just to get me to make dinner every night.

Day by day, these guys turned my house into a place I was so much happier to be and a place where the furnishings looked like they actually belonged.

I stuck with the gray I knew and loved from my old house, Gentle Rain.  And I took up old habits, insisting the banister and kitchen cabinets go white.  The kids are so used to things turning white, they make comments about it all the time, which is weird to me, for them being so young.  "You really like white, don't you, Mom?"

Before

After

In fact, there was one time in Texas, probably 2 years ago, when Ava came home from school to find me painting yet another piece of furniture white.  She immediately burst into genuine tears, ran up the stairs and yelled at me from over the banister outside her bedroom door, in her perfectly dramatic way, "You always paint everything white! I hate it! I hate white! I just can't stand it anymore!" No lie, ask my mom, she was there.

Luckily, her heart has softened towards the color and she agrees that the kitchen looks beautiful, even though the boys insist they liked it the old way better.


Before

After

Anyways, I am happy. I feel like we've taken a giant step closer to making this place feel like home.  I feel like I can hang up our pictures on the wall and they will look nice.  There is still a lot to do, like window treatments all over the place, painting the last couple of rooms on the main floor, hanging our pictures and dining room mirror collection, and coming up with what I'll do over the family room couch.  It's times like these that I really miss my mom.

I was really looking forward to Easter which was probably my first mistake.  It is my favorite holiday. But Easter morning did not go quite as planned.  Somehow, Easter caught the Christmas virus and the boys showed up in our bed just before 6am because they were so anxious to find what the Easter bunny left them.  They've always enjoyed their Easter baskets but this was the first year I felt that stupid bunny overshadowed everything else.  So, I was out of sorts before I even got out of bed.  We did make the resurrection rolls, but most of our conversation was drowned out by candy talk (except Ava who probably loves Easter as much as I do).  

We ran out of time getting ready for church but I was dead set on getting a picture of the kids together.  So I plopped them all on the couch, promised them an extra reese's egg and started snapping.  Dan stood to the side being his best silly self and ensuring this one golden shot.

We got to church too late to get a seat and had to spend Sacrament meeting in the foyer.  Which was the perfect location for my Easter let-down, hormonal pity party. I spent the rest of the meetings following a fussy Finn through the halls. Happy Easter!

The highlight of this day though,  was heading down to Colorado Springs after church to my brother Bret's house. Dinner was delicious and it was so comforting to spend the evening with family.  The weather was great for the gigantic Easter Egg hunt my nieces set up.

 The kids had so much fun.

 And Ava and cousin Sara get along like old pals, though I didn't get any pictures of them together, sadly.

The rest of the evening was spent in the backyard talking and shooting hoops, and I can't speak for anyone else, but I kept wishing they weren't really going to be moving to Oregon this summer.


 

Because thanks to them, by the end of the night, I could say "Happy Easter!" and really mean it.