Easter Break Ups & Downs

As I've mentioned before, Koen and Tavin are on Easter break this week.  For a pastor's wife, Easter break is really double duty week.  You can't leave town because your husband has the biggest weekend ahead of the Christian calendar and he's also super busy in preparation for it.  This week has been especially taxing since our church location is moving into a new building and the first services to be held in the new space are Good Friday and Easter.  So Doug has been out every night with hoards of staff and volunteer pushing to get the space ready for the weekend.  Some afternoon or evenings he's taken Tavin or Koen or both along to put in their sweat equity as well.  All this to say, it's been an intense week.  I love having the boys around here, but some moments are very overwhelming since Jansen is still so young and hands-on and since Koen and Tavin are used to more time apart (and so all the together time = lots of squabbles or lots of silliness or both).  It's also hard because the weather hasn't exactly cooperated this week.  We've had some nice enough moments to get outside a bit, but it's definitely not consistently Spring yet (or when it is, there's rain lurking or the backyard is too messy/muddy to really be able to play on our little lawn, etc.).  Anyways, I've had my moments of being overwhelmed, well, let's face it, I've cried a lot, raised my voice more than I like to admit and felt like just hiding in a room with Jansen and a romantic comedy by about 2pm most days (which I didn't do of course).  But we've had great moments too.  The three oldest boys played "polar bears," building caves and collecting pretend food up on the 3rd floor for an hour and a half one morning with no fighting.  Amazing when all 3 can find something they enjoy to do together and it goes off without a hitch.  We had that fun together with the Easter egg dyeing projects.  On Wednesday, we had a wonderful visit from my friend, Deborah, and two of her kiddos (Claire was at preschool).  Miles and Koen and Tavin played awesome upstairs together as did Hazel and Penn.  Deborah and I got to spend most of the time chatting and enjoying Jansen.  It was lovely and probably one of the reasons I survived this Easter break!  Here's a picture of Deborah sharing some smiles with Jansen.

It was a relatively short visit because Deborah had to pick Claire up from preschool, but we had set up that she would take Koen for the afternoon so he and Miles could have some more time together.  It worked out wonderfully!  It was a mostly sunny day in the 50's, so they spent a lot of time outdoors at Deborah's and then in the late afternoon they took in a tennis match (Miles' dad is a tennis coach) and there were several playgrounds near the courts.  

After the match was over, Grant, Miles' dad, had a mini lesson with Koen and Miles.  Koen really enjoyed it!

I got the three younger ones outside back here too.  We had a fun late afternoon/evening with the neighbors before heading home to meet Koen and have dinner, etc.  Thursday was the big downer day.  I didn't sleep well the night before, Koen and Tavin woke up fighting with their first breath pretty much and it was off to a tough start.  Things just got worse until I got all the boys outside to Highland Park for some time in the fresh air.  There's nothing like how the great outdoors can change the course of a day.  The playground was packed with all the other parents taking advantage of the mild day during Spring break.  Tav was so proud of himself because he did the monkey bars with ease this year!

Due to all the kids on the playground, the boys opted to play by the woods most of the time.  They played really well together and spent most their time playing on the rocks building structures and pretend fire pits.  

After our lunch and some more play at the park, we drove over to the new church building and Koen and Tavin stayed there with Doug for the afternoon helping with odd jobs.  He said they were quite helpful!  I was so thankful for the much-needed peaceful afternoon while Jansen and Penn both took good naps.  After naptime, J, P and I hung out reading books and doing puzzles until Doug and Koen dropped Tav off and Koen headed back to do more work with Daddy.  Koen didn't get home until 8:30pm!  He had worked hard and was exhausted.  Thankfully we all slept pretty well Thursday night after that day and woke up refreshed on Friday.  We were blessed with the exciting news too that Doug was able to hang out with us for the morning.  He got all 3 boys out of the house for Penn's speech appointment and a trip to the library.  Again, I enjoyed the break from the bustle of all the boys in the house and soaked up the time with Jansen (see post about his first bath!).  Just after the break yesterday afternoon and the quieter morning today, I feel refreshed and ready to tackle the rest of this Easter "break."