Keeping up with...Family (Weekly Wrap 4/14 - 4/20 - Part 1)

Friday (4/14) was the boys' first day of a long weekend so we all slept in.  Adrian actually ended up with the day off as well thanks to some comp time and a late night earlier in the week.  We started our day with haircuts for the boys at Great Clips and then our free dozen of donuts at Krispy Kreme for good report cards.  We also grabbed a quick lunch of McDonald's for Daniel and Zak and Taco Bell for the rest of us.

After that running around, we came home to start preparing for our weekend full of company.  Adrian set up the pizza crust for dinner tonight and I did the sauce and chopped all of the vegetables for the pizzas.  I also started prepping for Easter breakfast and Easter dinner.  The boys spent some time playing video games and anxiously waiting for the cousins to all get here.

Jon, Rebecca, Luci and Antonia finally got here around 4pm and the kids immediately ran outside to play.  The girls loved checking out our toys, both inside and out.  Carl, Sarah, Isabelle and Vinnie got here closer to dinner time.  We ate pizza, colored our Easter eggs, had ice cream cake and played.  It was a really nice family night together!  Here are just a few pictures from that night.

 

 

 

 

Saturday (4/15) started early for me because I was up early cooking kielbasa and baking bobka for tomorrow's breakfast.  Adrian also took AJ to Brain Balance because we didn't want to miss his session.  The others all decided to go to a Spring Fest in New Albany but we decided to sit that event out and meet up with them a little later.  We had leftover pizza for lunch at home and then met them all at Easton for some Jeni's ice cream.  It was a gorgeous day and very crowded so we didn't stay long at Jeni's.  We got our ice cream, picked up the boys free Cheryl's cookies for their report cards & got my wedding ring cleaned and inspected for my warranty before heading out.

We went over to Carl's house for the rest of the day.  The kids all went to the park for a while to play while Carl and I prepped dinner.  Then they came home and played upstairs for a while so the adults could relax and then set up the egg hunt in the yard.  The kids loved searching for the eggs in the yard, especially AJ and Luci who found the golden eggs and got giant chocolate bunnies as a reward.

 

After the egg hunt, the kids spent the rest of the day playing together, eating candy and running around both inside and outside.  The adults enjoyed a delicious dinner, drinks and lots of adult conversation.  It was a fairly relaxing evening, which is great when you have 7 kids together!  We wrapped it up fairly early as I still had lots of prep for the next morning.

Sunday (4/16) Happy Easter!!  I started the day by heading to the church early.  I was asked to be part of the sermon today for both services.  The Children's Ministry pastor Andre was speaking about "Jesus for All People" and we had about 12 of us on the stage with him speaking in different languages.  I was representing American Sign Language.  It was a very moving experience to be up there sharing the word in ASL.  We did a reading and sang a song for both services.  Everyone came to the 9:30 service and then headed back to my house to wait for me.

The kids did their second egg hunt at our house while I was at the second service at church.  Thankfully the predicted rain held off so they got to search for eggs inside and in our yard.  When I got home, we had the traditional Polish Easter breakfast - kielbasa, eggs, farmer cheese, rye bread & bobka.  I also made a cinnamon bun coffee cake which the kids loved!  When we finished eating, we were all in need of a nap!  Some of us did nap, some of us just rested on the couch, some of us (the kids) played video games.  It was a relaxing Easter afternoon.

We finished up our Easter celebration with a big dinner.  I did a ham and a bunch of sides.  Everything came out great and we all ate a ton!  We had cheese cake and leftover ice cream cake for dessert and the kids attempted to watch "Sing" together but were too distracted by each other and the desserts.  We called in another early night since Carl, Sarah and I all had to work in the morning.  Plus we were all really tired from an amazing weekend together.

This post is getting pretty long, even though it's mostly pictures.  I'm going to end this here and finish it up in another post.