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6:10 The alarm goes off for the second time this morning. Typically I don't use an alarm, but it's Sunday and we have to be out the door by 8 to make it to church on time, so I set it just to be safe. I did not sleep well last night - I woke up at about 3:30 to pee and tossed and turned from then on.
Chad's already up and gone. He's responsible for preparing the Easter meal for the toddlers and babies at Project Canaan (a goat...). He butchered it yesterday and went early this morning to prepare it.
When I went to bed last night, I grabbed Isaac out of his bed and brought him to mine (I do that a lot...can't help it, love those cuddles) so the alarm has woken him up and he's ready to get up. He lets me know that the clothes hanging on the cupboard scared him because he thought it was a person. I go to the bathroom and wash my face, then check on Miriam. She's usually my alarm clock, so I rarely see her snoozing in the mornings.
Isaac and I go upstairs. Isaac grabs his new Lego book (we did Easter baskets yesterday and he got a new Lego Star Wars book - one he's been asking for for months.) and I start on breakfast. Coffee is already made - I got it ready last night and Chad turned it on this morning before he left. Only one day's worth of Thin Mint creamer left. WAH!
6:30 Sissy is up. Isaac and I both go down to get her. Isaac is always super sweet to her when she first wakes up, so they talk for a minute. She wants Georgia videos (Georgia is my brother's dog and he regularly sends us videos of her), so I pull them up on my phone and take us all upstairs. While the kids are distracted with that, I finish making breakfast.
6:38 Time to eat. I check fb and email while I eat. Of course, I have to share my coffee with sissy. Sometimes I make her her own cup (which is mostly milk) but today she asked for chocolate milk instead.
6:50 Isaac's done and wants his Star Wars Lego movie in. Another Easter basket goodie. It's only 20 minutes long and we've watched it probably 6 times since yesterday morning. He's obsessed. We mark off a day on his calendar, then I set him up and at Miriam's request, give her a piece of paper with a marker while she finished breakfast.
7:05 The kids are busy, so I head downstairs to get ready. I put on a little bit of makeup - probably only the fifth time since moving here. I just never wear it here, for some reason. I'm nearly done when Miriam calls to me. I clean her up and bring her down with me. She plays for a minute while I get my straightener turned on. I'm about to check IG while I wait for the straightener to warm up when Miriam tells me she's pooped. I change her, then hear Isaac's movie finish - he goes to his Legos and starts acting out scenes from the movie. I sit sissy on the bench while I fix my hair and she plays with my jewelry.
7:40 Chad's home! We both get dressed (Miriam tries on our shoes) then get the kids dressed. Wanna guess who was excited about their outfit and who wasn't?
7:50 Picture time.
Isaac hates pictures, so I warned him beforehand that we would take pictures and he would smile, and if he cooperated, he could have a snack. This was his smile. LOL.
But then he was really sweet with Miriam. He got 5 jelly beans for that. :)
8:05 On the road. Chad and I discuss our games plans both for church and our Easter meal while Isaac plays the iPad and Miriam reads. This is only our second time visiting this church and it will be Isaac's first time going to the children's area. I know he's going to want one of us there for security at first, and I also know he's gonna ask that it be me.
8:46 Arrive.
What a view, yeah?
The big kid wants to be carried and the little one wants to walk. Typical.
We get inside and figure out where exactly Isaac is supposed to go. They have a really awesome play area for the kids while they wait for their classes to start, but Isaac tells me he's too scared to play. This is not typical of his personality, but things tend to be extra overwhelming for him here, so I'm not all that surprised. I force him into selfies instead.
9:00 The leaders gather up the kids for worship and praise and they spend about 40 minutes singing. Then the classes split by age. A teenager who is helping comes over to talk to us and it turns out that not only is she American (no accent barrier for Isaac) but she also knows who Isaac is through 3 boys Isaac has befriended in our neighborhood and adores. He warms up to her very quickly, thanks to this! I go with him into his classroom, but he is fine with me standing at the door while he participates with the class. After about 10 minutes of intro stuff, they pull out tables to play with play doh, so I let Isaac know I'm leaving. He's not thrilled about it, but I know he will be OK once I'm gone. I promise I will check in on him in 10 minutes and if he's unhappy or upset, I'll pick him up. That appeases him, so I leave.
As I am walking out of the children's area towards the sanctuary, I run into Chad and Miriam. There is no class for kids under 2 - they just stick with the parents. Chad says Miriam did really great for the past hour, but has grown restless. I tell him I'll take over and send him back into the sanctuary to listen to the sermon. There is a large lobby and you can hear the sermon from there, so I sit in a chair for most of the time while Miriam happily explores and plays with the other under 2 kids who couldn't hack it at the service. At some point, we do go check on Isaac, and he's happily playing.
10:55 Church is wrapping up, so Miriam and I go pick up Isaac. As soon as he's through the door, he tells me "I had a great day, mommy!!" Yes! I'm so thrilled to hear that. Church has been a struggle lately because there is no separate children's church at the chapel on Canaan, so Isaac is bored out of his mind. I'm really happy to have found a place with a good ministry for kids.
Isaac painted a bag in his class and they put some jelly beans in it. He's eating them when he comes out and Miriam sees it. She starts pitching an all out fit over them. She's tired, so even though Isaac shares one with her, it's pretty much downhill from here.
11:06 Service is over, so we grab Chad and leave church. Miriam is pissed and let's us know it. About 7 minutes into the drive, she falls asleep. Once she's no longer screaming at us, Chad and I talk about how the service/morning went. An overall hit, and will be even better once we can just drop Isaac off and tag team Miriam.
11:40 We are almost home and stop at Spar for vanilla ice cream to go with our peach cobbler. Chad ran into grab it and we are halfway home before I look in the bag. He bought Dialite - diabetic ice cream. Um, no. Gag.
11:50 Home. Chad drops us off and goes back to Spar to take the gross ice cream back and buy the right stuff. Isaac, Miriam, and I go downstairs. I lay down with Miriam, hoping she'll nap awhile longer while Isaac reads.
12:10 No more sleeping for Miriam. Darn. Hopefully she'll sleep a bit later, because she's only slept for about 30 minutes. I hate when that happens. We all come up so I can make a quick lunch. Chad walks out to the porch to light the braai (grill/bbq pit) for our Easter meal and finds our porch light is busted and there is glass all over the floor. I immediately guess that a golf ball hit it, but Chad thinks that when we moved the patio table to set the camera on it earlier this morning, we vibrated the light and it later fell and busted. I'm not buying it, thought. Chad starts to clean up the mess and a few minutes later he knocks on the window and I look out - he's holding up a golf ball. :)
I make the kids pb&j and a salad for myself. The kids aren't all that interested in their food and soon move on to playing.
12:45 Since the kids are busy, I start with my cobblers. I mixed the dough, peeled the peaches, and made the filling yesterday, so all I need to do now is roll out the dough and bake them. I don't have a rolling pin, so I use my camelbak. I also empty and refill ice trays and fill the tea kettle to boil some water. The water here is safe to drink, but it tastes so chemical-y. Boiling it first really helps the taste, so I do that for all our drinking water.
About 15 minutes in, Miriam is getting fussy so Chad puts in Robin Hood.
1:15 Cobblers are ready to bake. I overfilled one and underfilled the other, but whatever. As long as they taste good, I don't care if they are pretty. I clean up, then see Isaac has built sissy a "cave". Haha. I'm tired, so I lay down on the couch to chill with the kids. After just a few minutes, Miriam is acting fussy and tired. I really think she will sleep a bit more. Or at least, I hope she will. Chad is busy prepping all the meat and Isaac is admiring all his Legos that I've moved off the dining room table.
1:40 I take Miriam to her room and lay down by her. She does not like to cuddle with me while she falls asleep, but she always wants to hold hands.
1:50 She's like a little fish: flip flop flip flop. I end up passing out regardless.
2:50 I wake up. Miriam is still awake...I don't think she ever fell asleep, but she laid quietly in her bed, so at least she got some rest. We get up, I run my fingers through my hair to settle it down a bit, set out plates, cups, and silverware, wipes off both tables, and pick up some last minute toys.
3:00 Our first guests arrive! We are having Easter dinner at our house and we invited all the HfA crew (plus another American couple that lives near us). I can't imagine celebrating Easter without a big meal, so Chad and I talked weeks ago about having everyone over to our house - our thought was to have Chad make all the meat, me make desserts, and everyone else bring a side. I think everyone else had a similar thought process to us - a holiday just doesn't feel like a holiday without a big "family" meal/celebration, so they all loved the idea.
3:30 The last of the crew shows up, so Chad and I get all the food laid out and serving spoons lined up. Two roast chickens, chipotle pork belly, ribs, pork bangers, mashed potatoes, corn casserole, green bean bundles, homemade mac and cheese, rolls, peach cobbler, and ice cream. Yes, please.
3:45 Dig in!!
After we eat, we just hang out. The adults talk while the kids run around. Lots of fun and the kids about wear themselves out. I offer to do an egg hunt, but Isaac isn't interested. No biggie. We've already done two since we dyed the eggs Wednesday, so I guess he's over it. Throughout the afternoon, the kids chase each other, Miriam climbs into the basket under the stroller and gets stuck, we blow lots of bubbles, Isaac tries to figure out the jump rope, Miriam admires Koa, one of the HfA volunteer's baby, Miriam takes off her diaper twice, Isaac drinks a ton of lemonade, and Miriam falls about 13 times, busting her lip once.
6:20 Everyone leaves and Isaac has been dying for daddy playtime, so we go downstairs to play in our room. I wash my face while Miriam finds boots to model.
Isaac and Chad perform acrobatic tricks and Miriam falls - again - and needs cuddles.
6:35 Bath time! Both kids have black feet from running around barefoot all afternoon.
7:00 Get the kids out of the tub, dry them off, and get them dressed.
Quick fruit snack for each kid. Chad is on the couch chilling with the computer, so the kids join him. And I sneak more cobbler.
7:10 Time to read. The four of us go to the kids' room and Isaac chooses three (short, thankfully) books that we read through together.
7:20 Daddy tells the kids goodnight and then it's lights out. Isaac's bedtime used to be later than Miriam's, but we realized when my mom was here that he was consistently falling asleep at 7 when she would read to them. So we moved his bedtime back an hour and a half. He still sleeps just as late in the mornings, so apparently, we were depriving him of sleep. Poor kid! And today especially, I know the kids have gotta be exhausted. They played hard all day and Miriam barely got a nap.
Nighttime set up is this: I lay with Isaac in his bed and scratch his back with one hand. Miriam lays in her bed and requests either that I scratch her back or hold her hand. Tonight, it's hand holding. Just as we are settled, sissy let's out a big sneeze and I squeeze her hand. Then another sneeze so I squeeze again. And finally, a pretend sneeze, so I squeeze one more time. Silly girl.
7:28 Both kiddos are zonked. 8 minutes. That may be a new record. I sit there for a minute typing a few notes on my phone.
7:40 I head upstairs. Chad is chilling on the couch. I straighten up and get all the dishes into the scullery, throw all the trash out (we used paper/plastic for the meal), and start transferring all my photos from the day onto the computer. Once that's done, I hand my phone off to Chad so he can listen to music while he washes dishes. (When I was pregnant with Miriam and so sick, Chad took over doing dishes and somehow, we never transferred that chore back to me. Now, my plan is to keep having kids, hand over one chore at a time to Chad, and eventually, I'll have no chores! Ha.) I sit down to start start writing out this post and organizing all the photos.
8:45 Whoops. 45 minutes has gone by and all I've done is mess around on facebook...
10:00 I am beat. I've written this entire post, so it's off to bed for me...the pictures can wait until tomorrow. Chad tells me goodnight and I go downstairs. I check on the kids - Miriam is all wonky, so I straighten her up and cover them both up. I almost take Isaac to bed with me, but change my mind last minute. We are both exhausted, and I'm afraid moving him will disturb him. I lay in bed and check IG for about 10 minutes, then hit the hay.
12:15 I hear Miriam crying as she walks down the hall to our room. Odd - very unlike her. I pull her into bed with me and she falls right back to sleep. About 10 minutes later, Isaac pads down the hall and climbs in bed with us as well. Good thing it's a king size.
6:30 Both kids are awake, but Chad and I ignore them for about 15 minutes, trying to get a few more minutes of shut eye.
6:45 Up for the day, ready to start it all again!
