Good Friday Celebrations, Easter Decor and Free Printables

Our Good Friday was an especially, well, good one spent with family—just the way we like it. Earlier this week, our family dinner plans changed a bit and I offered to host the casual gathering at our place. I grabbed a ham at the grocery store and gave the house my best once over as quick as I could, which didn't go as smoothly as planned when I came down with a case of food poisoning (never again, local Thai restaurant) on Thursday afternoon. But the husband rallied and helped get everything in order and it all turned out just fine!

I returned to the Land of the Living by Friday morning after nearly 12 straight hours in bed. (Cannot remember the last time I did that.) The ham was in the oven by 3:30pm and my parents, plus my sister, Sabrina and the quad's adorable cousin Rayne all came over to celebrate. The kids were super excited to see Rayne who, I later learned, was planning to pick a visit to our house over a trip Six Flags if she had to! What a sweet girl! Fortunately for her, she was able to spend the day at the amusement park and then come join us afterward.

Summer (my sister) and Sabrina brought adorable gifts for everyone, large stuffed eggs for the egg hunt and a Paw Patrol mega block set for the kids! That entertained them for over an hour and all five kiddos played so well in the play room together. Sabrina helped me finish stuffing our eggs then she, myself and the husband divided and conquered the front yard, making it look more like a chicken coop gone golden with so many eggs everywhere.

The egg hunt was a huge success—we had over 200 of them!—and each kiddo filled their basket up. I loved it! This year, the quads really had it down too. They didn't try to open each egg as they picked it up and Rayne helped by setting a good and quick example!

After the egg hunt, we stashed the baskets and sat down for dinner in our kitchen. Ham on the bone, baked beans, homemade potato salad, fruit salad, rolls and peach cobbler with ice cream for dessert. The kids then played pin the tail on the bunny before watching Brer Rabbit, while the adults got a little down time, chatted, play on my Snapchat (find me under TexasTales!) and sipped wine.

Later this weekend, I'll share a recap on the rest of our Easter festivities and what's in the quad's Easter baskets, but for now here's a snapshot of the only decor I managed this year. But it's on our entry table by the front door, so I figured it counts double, right!? The cute Easter printable can be found here; I sized mine down to a 5X7 to fit my frame.

Earlier this week, the kiddos had their class Easter egg hunt at school and I created these simple printable tags for a quick and cute teacher Easter gift. I've got 'em for you in a PDF download right here! They're great for teachers as well as friends and family, too. You can never have too much lip balm or, if you're like me, you just want all the coconut things.

For the past two weeks or so, the husband and I have been discussing what Easter is really about (not just the Easter bunny) with the kids and reading some books about Jesus and His life and they're understanding far more than I expected they would. We love all the cute Disney 5 Minute story books, so I was excited to find Bible Stories in 5 Minutes, which will be great to convey passages and lessons in terms the kids can relate to. Other library reads we've picked up that have been good for us include The Miracle of Easter by Jean M. Malone and The Easter Story by Brian Wildsmith.

It's definitely been important to us to take a moment here and there to remember the sacrifice Jesus made on that cross that day, and how willingly He traded His life for ours. To know that I am loved and cared for so strongly and passionately—as are you—is a powerful revelation and one that certainly carries me through. And it's a truth I intend for my children to know, trust and love with their whole hearts.

Happy Easter to you and yours! He is risen!

PS - Need some extra weekend reading? Check out my guest post on fellow mom of multiples blog, Capri +3, where I share 10 ways to make life easier with kiddos!

Our Halloween Weekend

Halloween was an exciting event this year! It was the first time for two things: for the kiddos to select their very own costumes, and for us to go trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. The past two years we dressed them up in outfits of our own choosing and last year we took them to each of the grandparents house to trick-or-treat there and visit for a little while. That was enough excitement to wear them out and don't you know they still got plenty of sweet treats!

This year, though, we've mastered going on group walks throughout our neighborhood and they totally get the whole concept of Halloween, costumes and trick-or-treating so we went with the whole shebang!

I can thank Target for making most of our costume search easy—we scored a Spiderman, Rapunzel and Ariel costume there at 50% off with a coupon on my Cartwheel app—and then Kailey picked out her cute little Minnie costume when she was with me on a shopping excursion at Costco a week before. They'd worn them a couple times before the big night, once for a Halloween party with our quad buddies, the Shawvers, and once earlier this week when we visited the husband's parents for an pre-Halloween outing and they trick-or-treated there then stayed for dinner while the husband and I got a date night!

After naps, all four were super excited to start putting on their gear and get ready to go. We'd picked up four dollar pumpkin buckets earlier that day and reviewed how trick-or-treating works and that they only take a piece or two of candy from each house—not handfuls! They did AWESOME. They traipsed all over the neighborhood and had an absolute blast the entire time, with not one complaint about all the walking, carrying their pumpkins (that got heavier with every door knock!) or getting tired. In fact, they were doing so well that when we got back to the house we loaded up in the suburban and headed to my mom's house for a surprise trick-or-treat visit there!

I brought pajamas with us, so once the fun was over we dunked them in the bath tub and got everyone dressed for bed then drove our wired but tired and very happy four little pumpkins home. They slept right up until the last minute on Sunday but thanks to the time change and falling back an hour, we made it to church only a little late. My mom sat with us then we all went to lunch afterward before heading home for naps. The kids didn't exactly cooperate on the latter, but they did get some quiet rest time in their rooms while the husband and I got a break to watch a show together on the couch and relax for a minute. 

To cap off our weekend focus of spending special time with the kiddos (which included our first-ever date day!), the husband took Harrison to an indoor bounce house for a couple hours while I stayed at the house with the girls and had a fun afternoon with them. I painted 70 nails—including my toes!—then we had cupcakes and watched Frozen Fever and a couple episodes of Team Umizoomi. They really enjoyed all the attention, and I was so glad we had been able to carve out time with all the kids.

Now I just need to check myself into Binge Candy Eaters Anonymous and find a better hiding place for my sugar stash....like the trash, if we're being honest.

Our Fourth Weekend

Well, if you read my last post, I am happy to report that fireworks were a success! The kids loved them. (And so did their dada, if the adorable photo below is any indication.)

My parents joined us for dinner earlier in the evening, which was cooked entirely on the grill. The husband did a great job manning the flames and getting everything grilled to perfection!  Grilled stuffed burgers, beef sausage, zucchini, potatoes and corn. It was so good!

The kids played outside in the backyard while dinner was made and we had music playing. There were extra seats at the table and flowers in the vase. All the makings of a holiday. :)

After dinner, we drove to a nearby field and set out our lawn chairs and cracked open a few drinks while we waited for darkness to settle. I broke out the glow bracelets and wands for the kids and they chased each other around in the grass before the booms and sparkles started. All four enjoyed the fireworks so much! They rotated through their chairs and our laps during the show, each one commenting on the colors, the shapes or sizes. One of my favorite moments was when Trystan was sitting in her little blue plastic lawn chair at my feet and said, "Oh, I love it!"

It truly was the perfect 4th and a memorable one since the kids have now experienced fireworks! Since we all went to bed late, they slept in late and we had to work hard to get everyone woken up for church this morning. Unfortunately, Harrison's fever is still hanging around and he wasn't feeling very well again (he's had some good moments over the weekend at least) so he stayed home with the husband while I took the girls with me to church. It was my Sunday to help in their Children's Church class, then my mom met up with us afterward and we girls all went to lunch. I love that I can do things like that with my kids now! I remember when they were babies and thinking about all the fun outings we'd experience with them when they were older, or the plans we could make at the last minute "just because." And now all that is happening, which makes me very grateful and happy.

I'd been desperately wanting to take the girls to see the new Cinderella movie once it hit the dollar theater and there was a showing right after our lunch. But it was also their typical nap time and I knew there was no way Kailey would make it through. So I dropped her off at the house, feeling totally guilty that I was sneaking the other two girls off with me and my mom and Kailey wouldn't get to go to the movies. We kept it hush-hush so she wouldn't get upset, and she ran inside straight to Harrison who had been laying on the couch. She literally squealed with happiness to see him and he gave her the biggest hug around the neck. Melted my heart into a million sobby pieces! Without hardly a second glance at me, she hopped up onto the couch next to him and snuggled into his shoulder and his blanket to join him in watching the movie that he and the husband had started earlier. Clearly she wasn't heartbroken at our division of plans!

So my mom and I took Trystan and Logan to the theater where my sister and her kiddo met up with us as well. It was such a perfect afternoon and we passed cookies and popcorn up and down our row of six, while we all enjoyed a great film. The girls loved it, especially Logan—she had her eyes fixated on the screen the entire time and was completely enthralled with the story. They knew the traditional Cinderella tale and recognized the character in the film, as well as the evil stepmother (muttering "That's not nice!" when she tore the sleeve on Cinderella's dress), the fairy godmother and Prince Charming. They told their daddy all about it when we got home, even how they danced at the ball and Cinderella got a pretty new dress. These are the moments I love.

It's been an awesome holiday weekend and I think we've successfully rotated through all the red, white and blue clothing we own...

Now it's time to get back to the grind and prep for Monday. I was harboring grand plans of a morning at the splash pad but Trystan seems to now be down for the count with a fever as well. So we might be sticking it out at home and hoping this is only a 48-virus that will leave everyone alone soon.

Hoping you enjoyed a wonderful 4th with you and yours! Off to watch the latest episode of The Last Ship and sip some sleepytime tea...

Happy Red, White & Blue!!

It's so funny how so many normal things take on such great important and a newfound fascination when you're a parent watching your kids experience things for the first time, isn't it!?

In my opinion, it's truly one of the best things about being a mom to my quad squad. I get a little desperate sometimes hoping I don't miss anything, since I've got four little kiddos seeing or doing things for the first time all together. I don't want to miss a major expression that one makes while I'm watching another one to see how they react, meanwhile I've got two more that I don't want to overlook either! Photos, videos, memory books, blog posts—it's all part of my plan to record as much as possible so that I have all those important first moments and experiences to keep forever, and so each child has plenty of their own memories to revisit when they're older. We take a lot of group photos and make a lot of group memories, but there are still so many individual pictures, videos and outings that the kids have enjoyed on their own with myself or the husband. It's equally important to me that they can look back on their childhood and find those singled-out events; like something as simple as finding a cute photo of when they're two years old to include in a slideshow at their wedding that's of them as an individual and not just all four of them together.

Nostalgic, much? Ha, maybe so. We're talking about "firsts" and all and I've been giddy all weekend to watch the kids faces light up with excitement, hesitation, shock and awe when that first firework explodes! We've been talking about it all week, explaining how they look, the noise they make, that they only go up in the sky when it's dark. We've read a few books about the holiday and its celebrations (thanks to a sweet friend for sending those!) and have watched a few snippets of fireworks on TV thanks to news coverage we recorded from last night. The kids know we're grilling a big dinner this evening and then going to a field to watch the fireworks when the sun goes down! I even snagged some red, white and blue glow wands from the Dollar Store yesterday to surprise them with in the dusky light.

This exact day two years ago, we were sweating our asses off moving into this house of ours. It was a monumental day since we'd just spent four months living in a crammed-full apartment with quadruplets that were just learning to walk and get really mobile. Plus, we fell in love with this house after less than five minutes of seeing it for the first time and I have known ever since that it's our "forever home" where we are supposed to be! Sometimes we feel like we've been in it for quite awhile and get overwhelmed at the big to-do list of things we still want to improve or accomplish, then other days we realize it's only been two years and we've actually already accomplished a fair amount of things—especially while parenting quadruplets! So, you know...

This weekend so far has been a nice, quiet one filled with family time. The husband had Friday off work and the kids kept asking when he had to leave, thus also being repeatedly and happily surprised when he kept reminding them he was home all weekend! We spent a few hours at the splash pad...

 ...grabbed donuts for breakfast this morning...

...and stopped for hair cuts for the guys. (Harrison is a pro with this now, by the way! He gets up in his own chair and gets his hair trimmed while dada gets his cut one chair over. Harrison would give me a sly smile out of the corner of his eye every now and then and beelined it for the jar of suckers when he was done. Boy doesn't miss a thing!)

Everyone napped pretty solid this afternoon, which is good for their late night adventure this evening. Poor Harrison is now running a temp and I've no idea if it's a virus or cold or what, but he seems to be in better spirits after a long rest. Kailey was the first one to wake up, though, and got a few minutes of exclusive couch time with dada watching bronco riding. She kept saying, "Giddy up! Hang on!"

And while we're all on the hunt for any clothes that are red, white or blue to wear this evening, it seems perfectly acceptable to me in the interim to wear Cinderella undies and fairy wings. Because, you know. That is totally normal. ;)

Happy 4th! And, if you're a parent, happy 4th "kid watching!" Seeing life through the eyes of child has become one of my greatest privileges...