Easter weekend

Sometimes peer pressure can be a good thing... for example right now I'm being pressed peerly into writing a blog entry. No worries. Sometimes I need some pressure. Or a good kick in the pants. That works too. :)

So Happy Easter! This being Easter Monday, I'm on day four of a very nice long weekend. It's the most days off in a row I've had in almost a year, since I don't get vacation days at work until the end of May. I should be clear: I am earning them, I just can't take them yet. Which is frustrating. But as of May 31, I will have 10. Woohoo!

This weekend we're spending at home, and taking the time to finally get around to renovating Dhara and Elora's room. We've never painted or done anything with it since we moved in (aside from a few purple tempera paint flowers.) It's got the same nasty layers of wallpaper and paint that Anya's room had, but this time we know what we're getting into. It's slow going, since only one of us can work on the room during the day, and we only have so much energy at night after the kids are in bed, but we're getting a good start on it anyway. It's turning out to be a slightly easier job. There are only 4 or 5 layers of wallpaper, and the plaster underneath isn't crumbling as badly as the other room. (In places, it appears that the wallpaper was the only thing holding the plaster on.)

The bonus part is that DH finally finished building Anya's window frame last week and painted it to boot... yay! I really wanted it finished before all three kids moved into the room temporarily. Now the room is quite full of kids, beds and furniture. Reading stories is easier now too, as they all can lie down without kicking each other. :)

Friday was beautiful, and I took the kids to a park in Callander. It's the best park around, in my opinion. It's not one of these uber-childsafe plasic dealios, with all the rounded corners and a maximum height of 2 feet off the ground. It's oldschool -- made of real wood, friends. With chains. And tires, and a giant 12 foot slide, and it's shaped like a pirate ship. You can't get any better than that.

Saturday it rained, so we did indoor stuff: some Easter crafts, and decorated boiled eggs. The kids all wanted to go to bed at 5pm, even before dinner, "so the Easter bunny would come faster." I had to go get them up at 5:30, because they were all suspiciously quiet! I sang them a really annoying song to wake them up, which maybe was a mistake... "I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves, I know a song which gets on everybody's nerves..." (repeated ad nauseum) because then Anya started to sing it to be annoying. Hmm. Slight miscalculation there.

Sunday morning was Easter, and the girls had a lot of fun searching around the house for their plastic easter eggs o'candy. The Easter bunny was smart this year, and decided to separate the girls' eggs by colour, which worked out really well. DH was a little sad that there was no chocolate for him, but I have a feeling that with a lot of chocolate now being on sale, there won't be a shortage around our house.

Overheard: Anya talking to Dhara and Elora "You can't see the Easter bunny, because he comes while you're asleep. I've tried my whole life to see him!"

I took the kids to the park after lunch, as it was a nice day, and I wanted them out of the house while DH made dinner. We had a full blown turkey dinner with mashed potatoes, stuffing, fresh made croissants and gravy, and it all was delicious. I love that my husband likes to cook. We make a great team, because I like to eat, so it all works out well. :)

Other things to catch you up on:

-Dhara and Elora turned four Feb 18th.

-DH's grandmother turned 100 on March 24th

-My choir had our concert last week, which was really well received, and a lot of fun

-my Dad's concert is next weekend, so us girls are all going to go, as:

-DH has a gig next week helping on a video shoot for Thursday through the weekend (paid even! Oooh, aaahh.)

-We've decided to put the girls into Catholic French school.

Whhhaaaaaa?

Dhara and Elora are starting junior kindergarten in the fall, and we were very excited about "all day JK" which is what has been advertised all around here for months. So when I went to fill in the paperwork at Alliance (Anya's school) and I asked "Is it full day Junior Kindergarten?" they said "Yes," and then I asked "Full day every day?" and the answer was "Oh, no. Not every day."

Ugh. Suddenly DH and I were very disappointed, since he is starting to work a little more, and the flexibility of having the kids at school every day had become very appealing. So we went looking around, and the school around the corner, St. Vincente, started to grow on us. It's full day every day JK, they have before and after school daycare available, it's full French, but the only hitch was, it's a Catholic school. Hmmm. We went for a tour with Dhara and Elora, and then we let Anya try it out for a day (her best friend is in the class there) and we decided the positive stuff about the school outweighs the religious aspect. The other thing is that St. Vincente is a lot smaller than Alliance -- Anya's class next year might only be 17 kids. And they do have a lot more resources per child, that's for sure.

We debated having Anya at Alliance while Dhara and Elora go to St. Vincente, but that solution isn't very attractive, and we do really like the fact that St. V. is just around the corner. So, we decided to see how it goes, and send them all there. Catholicism didn't seem to do any damage to DH (much) so I guess we'll see.

This post is kind of done now, and I have to go. I hope it's not too long before the next one. :)

Love

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