Wednesday was Jesus Day at Raine’s school. They dressed up in clothing similar to that worn in Jesus’s time and did activities representative of things people did back then, like making scrolls, sealing letters with wax and imprinting it with a ring, building a castle with blocks, playing with a fabric ball they made, etc. They also assigned each person to bring food that they would have eaten then, like grapes, juice, crackers, olives, etc. I made some delicious naan for Raine to take.

Thursday, was a half-day of school for Raine and they had their class Easter egg hunts. Carter’s class also had an egg hunt.

Friday, Raine was off school so we went to a playgroup egg hunt that was moved into the gym last-minute because of rain the day before.

It was more of an egg “gather” than an egg “hunt.”

Everyone brought snacks to share and I made balloon animals and swords to keep the kids occupied after the hunt — it was pretty chaotic!

Saturday, we went to the Easter egg hunt at Raine’s school.

Several weeks ago, Carter spotted the old inflatable baby pool in the garage. Ever since, he has been asking if it is warm enough to use it. Saturday afternoon he asked again and I distractedly said something about it possibly being warm enough. The next thing I knew, Carter was running toward me wearing his swimsuit with his goggles on his eyes. It was too late then to tell him no, so I filled it up.

Saturday evening we had the Sister missionaries over for dinner and we put together an egg hunt for them. We put things like post-it notes and hair clips in their eggs. I didn’t get any good photos because I had to keep an eye on the ham.

Sunday, the kids found their baskets and then headed to church.

The Easter Bunny obviously loves Momma the best!

Raine is a stretchy-band bracelet maker now.

That evening we dyed eggs, but Carter refused to be photographed.

Conference weekend we decided to take advantage of the lack of church responsibilities and get away for a couple nights. Since Carter and I were coming from Austin Friday night, we decided to meet in the middle in Waco.

The first order of business was to hit the pool. Since the outdoor pool in Austin was so cold, Carter was REALLY looking forward to swimming in the nice indoor pool at our hotel in Waco. HOWEVER . . . that water was like glacial runoff! Apparently they don’t heat it. We couldn’t believe it. The kids were not to be deterred, so I happily sat in the hot tub while Daddy suffered near-hypothermia with the kids in the pool! Raine didn’t mind the water at all and Carter was too excited to swim to care too much about the frigid temperature. Poor Daddy was the truly miserable one, but he was a trooper. He even went back with them again that night!

After listening to the first session of General Conference, we went to the Waco zoo. Here are some photos from our outing:

The zoo had a great playground.

It also had a neat aquarium.

Here is Raine coming down the slide that went through the otters’ pool.

They wanted to take a photo on EVERY animal statue in the zoo.

Here is Carter running across the chimes. Each little square played a different tone when you jumped on it.

We had a very relaxing — and much needed — little getaway!

The first few days of April, I had a trial skills training in Austin. Carter came down with me and Grandma Anderson flew in to keep him occupied while I was in training. I’m not sure where all they went, but they sure had fun.

Carter was set on trying out the swimming pool . . . even though it wasn’t heated. Grandma watched from the side!

The second day, they went to the Children’s Museum.

That evening we drove downtown to the Capital Street Bridge to watch the bats fly out.

Day three they played at Zilker Park and rode the train.

Carter had so much fun with Grandma. He loved having her all to himself! He was maybe even a little TOO comfortable with Grandma. One afternoon he had just wiped himself after a bowel movement and came waddling out of the bathroom with his pants and underpants around his ankles. He turned around, stuck out his backside, grabbed both cheeks and asked Grandma if he had gotten it all! Ahhh, the inhibitions of a three-year-old (or complete lack thereof)!