Happy Easter!

Here's a few pictures of our Easter:




Both boys got an Easter book, a VeggieTales CD, a stuffed bunny, and lots of candy.

At the church

Going on an Easter Egg hunt

Holy Thursday and Good Friday

St. Stephens has this neat thing that they do for the kids. They give them Holy Week passports. For each service they attend during Holy Week, they have to have their passport signed and they get a special treat. If they attend at least 3 out of the 4 services, then they get a surprise at the end. We were already planning on going to services on Good Friday and Easter so we only needed to attend one more to get the surprise. I asked Shawn if he wanted to do it and he said yes so we went to church on Holy Thursday. Then I found out what the surprise is...they can take their passport to the information booth at the Spring Jubilee and get $10.00 worth of food tickets-Not bad! I was really surprised at how nice the service was. It kind of reminded me of going to Midnight mass on Christmas Eve. You could just feel the Holy Spirit in that church! Shawn did great considering how long the service was. I think it ended up being around 1 1/2 hrs.

On Friday, I took Shawn to St. Stephen's Catholic School for a Good Friday Children's Retreat. They were making a big deal about the amount of kids they had participating but I can't remember what the count was. I picked him up at 2pm and he said he had fun. It's hard to get much more information from Shawn. If I ask him what he did, he'll say nothing or he can't remember. When I picked him up he was playing with a boy he knew from his CCD class so I'm glad he at least knew someone there. From there we went on over to the church for the 3pm mass. I wanted to make sure we got there early so we could get a good seat. We ended up sitting in the first row, right in front of Father Bill. I thought it would be better for the kids if they could see what was going on but I was kind of regretting it later. Shawn did pretty good but Joshua...it wasn't that he was bad in the crying/screaming sense but he's so loud. He's talking so much now and he doesn't know when to be quiet. Thankfully, Father Bill likes kids and always praises the families with little kids in church because that's where they belong. So I just repeat that to myself when Joshua is a bit noisy in church. He did do a few things that were actually kind of funny but embarrassing at the same time. He started singing after the song ended which Father Bill smiled at. Then when they were bringing the Eucharist in the church and the alter servers were leading the way with the candles, Joshua started yelling candle, candle, Mommy candle. I'm whispering in his ear that I see the candles and that he needs to be quiet like everyone else and then he starts singing happy birthday to you Cha Cha Cha and then pretends that he's blowing out the candles, lol. Then during the Veneration of the Cross, I think Joshua tongued the cross, lol.

I couldn't believe how packed the church was on Good Friday. There were tons of people standing. Father Bill made me laugh when he started his homily. He asked us "what are you doing here?" "NO, really, what are you doing here. According to the news, we should all be at the beach." It did kind of irk me when people made comments that everyone was making such a big deal about taking Good Friday off and that most people just wanted the day off and not to celebrate the holiday.

Tomorrow's going to be an early day for us. We are going to try to get to the 8am mass and I know we'll have to get there early if we want a good seat, especially after seeing how packed the 3pm Good Friday mass was. Then we'll come home and enjoy a nice breakfast. We are going over to my parents for dinner and will have an Easter egg hunt for Joshua, Shawn, Alex, and Aiden. I hope everyone reading this enjoys their Easter!

I wonder how tomorrow will be...

Shawn just got home from school and the bus attendant asked me if they sent home anything regarding tomorrow. I told her no but that Shawn wasn't going to school tomorrow and she said good. She implied that at least as far as the buses were concerned, it was going to be horrible. Shawn rides an ESE bus and doesn't get home from school until 4pm. I can't imagine what time he would get home tomorrow if he were going. I opened up Shawn's backpack and there wasn't anything in there regarding tomorrow so we'll see how it goes.

Why is it...

That when a man takes out the garbage, he can never remember to put a new trash bag in the trash can???

Book Crossing

Someone sent me a link to the Book Crossing website when we lived in Maryland and I thought it was very cool but at the time, we were getting ready to move to Florida so I never did anything with it. Well now I just found it again through the Frog Pond and I'm so excited. I wanted to find the Book Crossing website but I couldn't remember the name of it. Basically, this is how it works:

You put a label on the inside cover of your book that has a unique Book Crossing ID number. Then you register your book on Book Crossing's website and set your book free. You can leave your book on a park bench, on a table in your favorite coffee house, at the gym, the sky's the limit. Then you can track your book to see where it ended up. You can also search for books that other Book Crossing members have set free. They have label templates that you can print from your printer for free or you can buy fancier ones on their website and they even have weather proof bags in case you want to leave your book outside. I can't wait to get started!

Good Friday

I can't believe the controversy over the schools not having off on Good Friday! Personally, I'm very disappointed and plan to keep Shawn home that day. Good Friday is the day Jesus died for us. It's more important than Christmas. That's why I'm not sending Shawn to school that day. I just read this article at TBO.com. I'm secretly excited that so many teachers and drivers are using their right to take off a religious holiday. The school board should have known this was going to happen when they changed their calendar. The controversy that I was talking about is the comments left after that article. Some people need to get a life!

Boring Day

Well, I guess it wasn't boring but lazy. After going to the 8am mass, I was planning on bringing the kids home to eat something and then drive out to FishHawk so they could see the Easter Bunny or Peter Rabbit or whoever it was, but that all changed during mass. Joshua was horrible today! He would not stop talking. No tactic worked today. Shawn wasn't too bad but he wasn't on his best behavior either. After several warnings, I told him we weren't going to see the Easter Bunny. It was for the best anyway because this morning Joshua woke up at 5am and I think one of the reasons he was having a hard time in church was because he was tired. So we literally did nothing the rest of the day. I did not do the dishes like I should have. I did not do a load of laundry or pick up toys or the million other things that need to be done around this house. I felt kind of bad because our church had an Easter Egg hunt today at 1pm but I couldn't take Shawn because of Joshua napping. Oh well.

I'm a little disappointed that Hillsborough County schools don't have off on Friday. I decided last week that I was going to keep Shawn home that day. St. Stephens is having a retreat for kids on Friday and I'm going to sign Shawn up for it. It's from 8:30 to 2:30pm and they provide a snack and pizza for lunch plus they do all kinds of activities. I hope Shawn will enjoy it even though he might not know any other kids there.

Totally changing topics now...I like cats. I have had cats as pets. We do not currently have any cats and don't plan to get any pets until the kids are older. That being said, we have a cat problem. These stupid neighborhood cats like to hang out in our yard. Our neighbor has a few cats that live in his garage. They are outside cats. He leaves the garage door open just enough for them to get in and out of the garage. I know that they account for most of the cats in our yard but there are other neighborhood cats also. Yesterday evening, before it was dark, Don counted 5 cats in our back yard. Now normally, I wouldn't really care but at night all we hear is cats fighting. It's very annoying. I'm starting to think of evil thoughts to get rid of these cats (just kidding). I could not really hurt a cat but it's tempting, lol.