Easter looked a little different for us this year! Usually Sunday morning is a bit chaotic trying to get to Easter service at church on time and then going from one get together to the next. Our church changed services times and they offered Easter service on Saturday night (which is when we usually go). Sunday morning was so much more enjoyable this year!
We usually do an egg hunt Saturday, but weather and premade plans made us switch the egg hunt to Sunday morning. I was also able to make resurrection rolls as well, and usually Easter breakfast isn't that elaborate!
We dyed eggs Friday night, and I do believe that's a family favorite for everyone.
This was also the first year in the last several years I decided not to make the girls' Easter dresses. I had already bought a pattern, but saw the cute matchy navy ones at TJ Maxx. They were $15 each, and I knew I wouldn't be able to make their dresses for that cheap... so I went ahead and bought them!
Hayden asked this year if the Easter bunny was like Santa Claus, so I explained that yes, it was all the same. He wanted to hide the eggs, but I told them if he hid eggs, he couldn't hunt them. He wasn't quite ready to give up the egg hunting, so Kevin hid the eggs. He's done a really good job not telling the little kids the truth.
We also spent about $5 per kid on Easter baskets. Usually I would spend $20-40, but Easter fell right during my big purging/house cleaning and I just didn't want more junk in the house. They each got a Dollar Tree toy (which has since been thrown away) and a little troll. And they were happy with it! I don't know why I think I need to go overboard on the holidays because they are so easily pleased with so little.
Enough rambling, here are some pictures!
Sunday morning egg hunt... this was about 6:30 am! Haha!
The month of April kept us busy! I thought I'd recap some of the things that happened this month!
New Bedtimes
Since Kevin started day shift this year, he's been going to bed early. He works 5:30-2, Monday-Friday. He wakes up between 4 and 4:30, so he goes to bed around 8 o'clock most nights. Normally I'd put the kids to bed around 9, then I'd stay awake and watch tv until 11ish.
I decided this past month that I'd try to get the kids to bed by 8, so I could go to bed then too. (I don't usually fall asleep until 9:30.) It was a big change for us, but I LOVE IT! I wake up on my own between 5-5:30. Waking up before the kids gives me some time to wake up slowly and unrushed. I sometimes workout while it's still dark, but this is mainly the time I do my bible reading. Before I started waking up early, I'd wake up in time to get the kids out of bed, rush to feed them breakfast, get them ready, and on the bus. I'd feel all day long like I needed to get my bible reading done, and it was just very hectic and not so enjoyable!
Another change is now the kids wake up on their own too. Hayden is usually the first awake and he's up by 6:30. Allie is always awake before 7. Our mornings have become so fun and peaceful! Some mornings they turn on the tv, snuggle together under a blanket while I make them breakfast. I send them to school with smiles and hugs and kisses, rather than us all feeling frustrated, rushed, and upset!
Hate Being By Myself
That hour or so I have to myself every morning is pure bliss. Kevin is always encouraging me to get some time to myself, and I have to admit, I find it totally awkward and I hate it. I hate shopping by myself, I hate going to appointments by myself, and I'd much rather have one or two kids in tow with me! I feel like when I'm not being "mom" or "wife," I just don't know what to do with myself! I just came to this realization this month when I've had to go several places alone. I know I'm not going to have little kids with me forever, so I'm going to have to eventually get over this. But, while the kids are still little and want to go places with me, I'm going to happily take them along :)
Minimalist
This month, I've come to love the idea of being a minimalist. In the last few weeks, I've worked really hard to get rid of "extra" in our house. I started in the kitchen, and cleaned out and reorganized every cabinet and drawer! I couldn't stop, and have since gone through almost every room/closet/piece of furniture in the house. The only place I have left is my closet - and that's going to be a big job! (I even went through shelves in the garage!)
The kids cleaned out the play room and we took out 4 bags of toys (1 for garage sale, 2 for goodwill, 1 for trash). I let them keep 7 toys in their drawers and 2 stuffed animals in their beds. If they want to replace one, then one needs to go. That may sound extreme, but they still have containers of dolls, barbies, dress up, legos, blocks, cars, and k'nex in the closet! They can't get the containers down unless the playroom floor is cleaned, and cleaning is now a breeze with the limited toys they have available to them. Hayden struggled the most with this purging. I ended up letting him have one small container of "stuff". He's always been attached to odd little things. But even he told me last week he was so glad we cleaned out the drawers because he's found toys that went missing that he really loved.
The kids weren't the only ones to clean. My hall closet was my craft closet and it got a total clean out. I took out about 5 trash bags of craft supplies and fabric and put them all in my garage sale. My hall closet use to be like that dreaded closet in the house but now it's holding just what I need. I don't have to body slam the door to shut it, and I even hung pictures in there! It's turned into a happy place.
With our kids birthday's getting ready to kick off, we've been asking for giftcards from the people that usually get our kids gifts! From here on out! We'd much rather take the kids for ice cream, or to the movies, or to FiredUp, or Gattitown, or the kids museum, or anywhere! We want experiences to be more valued than stuff. Our thinking is, the gift(s) we pick out for them will be more meaningful when they aren't overshadowed by tons and tons of toys, and the giftcards from others let us keep celebrating long after the birthday has past. Win/win in my book!
One thing I love about the changes we've made this month is my kids have really enjoyed playing together. Kevin's noticed and pointed it out too... (like the day it rained and they all went out back and splashed in mud puddles. They came in with the biggest smiles on their faces!) I know they've always loved each other, but it just seems like they have been able to really enjoy Hayden & Allie home from school, enjoy their time outside, and enjoy playing with whatever toy is out. This may have something to do with the earlier bedtime too, or maybe that mom and dad are less stressed by stuff and they can feel that too? I can't pinpoint what's to credit for this month's extra happiness, but it was definitely a good month at our house!
I love making flip-a-grams each month with pictures I've taken on my phone. My phone is the "camera" I usually have on me, and it's how I take most of my snapshots. I feel like these videos really capture our month well :)
I have a friend that was hosting a spring mini photo session as a fundraiser. I knew it was happening in early April, and thought it would be a good time to get an updated picture of my whole clan. It just so happens that we had the pictures taken on our 10 year anniversary! The pictures were taken in my bible study teachers back yard. They own a beautiful house with an even prettier back yard. My friend, Jessica, helped set up the backdrop and she did a great job too! Here are some of my favorites :)
After Kevin and I made our skydiving reservations, we were also talking about what else we could do to make it an epic day.
We
have talked for years about getting matching tattoos. We talked about
getting our wedding bands tattooed, but we just couldn't decide what we
wanted, so we never got anything. We decided to think outside the box.
We spent an evening throwing out ideas about what we could get. Since
the reason for celebrating was our 10 year anniversary, I started
thinking about how we could incorporate "10" in our tattoo. We knew X
was the roman numeral for 10, so we brainstormed "X" ideas.
When
Hayden was a little baby, we picked out Psalm 127:4 as a verse for
him... it say, "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born
in one's youth." This just seemed to fit. The highlight of our
marriage will always be the children we had in our youth! So I picked
out arrows I liked, and he picked out arrows he liked, and we hunted for
a tattoo shop between the skydive place and home.
We
found a place called Billy Joe's Tattoos in Terre Haute. It's actually
owned by a pastor and his wife. She runs a boutique in the front and he
owns the tattoo and piercing part. Marcus is that tattoo artist, and
we just felt like this was the place to go! We also wanted Panda
Express in Terre Haute for dinner. So we made appointments for the 8th
at 6pm.
After skydiving, we were both hungry and ready to eat. We had barely
eaten anything all day because our nerves kept us from feeling hungry.
We snacked a little and drove an hour and a half south to Terre Haute. We picked out
our favorite dishes at Panda Express and scarfed them down. The tattoo shop was about 5
minutes from dinner. We got there about 15 minutes early. Marcus
was just finishing up his appointment before us.
Us at Panda Express
We had texted him pictures of what we wanted earlier in
the day, so he drew up the designs for us and made sure we liked them. I
wanted mine smaller than what he drew, so he shrank it down, and I told
him again to go smaller, so he shrunk it again. I was still thinking
smaller, but he told me it would look really good with Kevin's the size
it was and he could do all the little details I liked. If we went smaller it would be less detailed. So I went
with it!
Our designs... I wanted my arrows up, Kevin wanted his arrows down.
Our new tattoos :)
Closer up of Kevins
Closer up of mine. Allie decided she's the arrow with the frilly ends, and Krissy is the arrow with the feather end.
Just like the skydiving, I went first (which was how I wanted it :)) I hadn't had a tattoo in 15+ years so I had forgotten what it felt like. I kept quiet and tried not to talk or move. I didn't want crooked arrows! Kevin mouthed, "Are you ok?", and I was, he was just afraid it was too painful for me. After mine was done (it probably took 10 minutes), we went out in the lobby so he could clean and get ready for Kevin's tattoo. I told him it hurt, but I was just trying to keep quiet and not move. Kevin's seemed to go faster than mine. We paid, got our tattoo goo, and were headed home. We got our skydiving pictures emailed to us on the drive home.
We got home right at 8pm (we gained an hour with the time change), and were thrilled to be back home with the kids. We were both mentally and physically exhausted from the day's emotional roller coaster. We showed the kids our pictures and everyone went to bed!
Sunday afternoon, our videos were emailed to us, and we just kept reliving how incredible the day was! Kevin kept smiling at me saying I have to be the coolest person he knows.... lol he makes me smile. I'm so glad we stepped out of our comfort zone and did some memorable things to celebrate our big anniversary! Fishing would have been fun, but it just wasn't what I had in mind :)
Most of you that read this blog also follow me on instagram, so you know my big news already.
At the beginning of the year, I decided I was going to read the entire bible. I have an app on my phone that tells me what chapters to read each day. On March 15, I was reading Deuteronomy 10 and verse 20 says, "Fear the LORD your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name." This verse stuck out to me and I started thinking about things I fear... the first thing that popped in my head was skydiving.
On one of my first dates with Kevin back in 2004, he told me he wanted to skydive. I told him I'd go watch, but I'd never do it. We had been talking on and off all year long about how we should celebrate our 10 year anniversary, and in early March we decided we'd spend the day at Barkley lake and go fishing. But after reading this bible verse and meditating on it for awhile, I really felt like God was pushing me to take a leap (quite literally) of faith. He wanted to show me I didn't need to fear skydiving. I've been reading in the old testament about how God has delivered his people, and I felt confident that even if we had a faulty parachute, God would still deliver me safely to the ground. I know I have nothing to fear, other than the Lord, but I don't usually live that way. I talked to Kevin when he got home from work and asked if we could scrap the fishing plans. I told him I wanted to plan a more exciting day.
My original plan was to not tell Kevin about skydiving until we got to the airport on April 8th. After about an hour of my heart racing and me sweating profusely (I usually never sweat!), he was dying to know. I thought maybe we could process this together, and get excited together, so I told him the plans. He was shocked. He was hesitant. I reminded him this was something he told me he wanted to do! He said he was enjoying this predictable life we live, which I was nodding in agreement, but he said "Let's do it!" I put down our deposit online.
We both thought of backing out several times over the next few weeks, but when one of us was weak, the other was strong. Telling him was definitely the right choice! We watched YouTube videos of people's jumps, I dreamed crazy skydiving dreams, I looked up tandem skydiving death statistics (which was actually really encouraging), I wrote a goodbye letter to the kids just in case, and we sang "Live Like You're Dying" under our breaths and smiled at each other because we liked having a secret.
The night before our jump (which was actually a day after our anniversary), we slept so great! I woke up a bit early but stuck to my morning routine, and we got ready and left for the day. It was about a 3.5 hour drive and that was probably the worst part of the day. We chatted to calm our nerves, but it was obvious we were both out of our comfort zone.
We arrived at Frankfort Municipal Airport about 12:25 and our scheduled time to start was 1. We were immediately taken back to watch the saftey video and fill out paper work, and by 12:45 we had paid and were ready to get fitted in our jumpsuits and harnesses. There was another young couple ahead of us. They were there celebrating his 25th birthday. They were actually from southern Indiana too, so we just made small talk. A couple instructors came up and talked to us, which helped calm some nerves too. Kevin's tandem partner, Kramer, was a little older than us, had been doing this for 20 years, and had jumped over 13,500 times. My partner, Ryan, had 1,500+ jumps.
We watched the couple infront of us go and come back safely and they kept talking about how awesome it was. We did a interview for the camera and then tightened our harness. My instructor told me he was invested in me and this was going to work, and we'd land safely. All that was reassuring to hear. We headed towards our little 1970s plane driven by a college kid. That was probably the scariest part of the whole thing.
Once we got in the plane, my partner was so good about keeping me calm. He kept encouraging me to take deep breaths, and talked to me almost the entire time. And I like to talk when I'm nervous. And apparently (from watching my video) I smile too much and wave nervously at any camera pointed my direction - haha! The best thing my partner said was right at the end of the flight. He said, "Just remember to enjoy it. You're just along for the ride!" I don't know why that eased my mind so much but it did!
The door I was squished against during the flight up was opened, my camera man crawled out over the top of us (we were packed in the plane like sardines which I don't think I've mentioned yet), and I followed procedure. My partner put one foot out, I was supposed to put my two feet out, then he'd put his last foot out and off we'd go! I was so calm during this part and I thought I'd be freaking out. I think this was just God answering all the hundreds of prayers I had said!
It's hard to describe the fall. It's not like a roller coaster, but it definitely feels like you're falling. I was hanging on to my straps for dear life, trying to get my bearings, and when I opened my eyes my camera man was looking right at me! I tried to smile for the camera, and before I knew it the freefall was over and the parachute was opening. Parachuting was the BEST part for me! It was easy, nothing scary about it, and I felt like, "ok, we made it!" And then that's exactly what my partner told me.
He had to adjust his straps and asked me to hold on to the parachute and stand on his feet. I don't think this part was planned, but if it was he hadn't prepared me for it. I heard what sounded like two buttons snap and he screamed, "OH GOD" and I screamed, "OH MY GOSH!" and he said, "Just kidding." I didn't find that nearly as funny as he did! He was giving me landing instructions and told me we'd slide in instead of landing on our feet. While he was talking I realized Kevin had already landed. I was confused how that happened since I jumped first, but all I knew it we were coming in fast for our landing. It was probably the ugliest landing I could have imagined and my back popped a funny pop when my legs got stuck behind me. Nothing graceful about it all.
My camera man was immediately back in my face asking me questions and I wish I had thought about how I was going to answer them ahead of time! "The coming down part" means parachuting by the way :) I was listening to my partner talk to Kevin's partner about how ugly his exit from the plane was. I knew his foot had fallen asleep on the flight up, but the exit felt seemless to me. My partner got out of his harness and back into a new one because he was
on the next group to go up. He wished us a Happy Anniversary while Kevin & I took a couple more picture.
We hugged, kissed, and said, "We Did It!" --- which is kind of how we felt about being married 10 years! We made it past some ugly, hard, rough times. It really was an incredible experience that I will never forget. People keep asking if I'd skydive again, and I think I would. I have no plans made in the future though. And if I never do it again, I'm fine with that too.
We called and texted our parents and siblings on the way to our next planned stop. Everyone was shocked, just as we expected. We had kept it a secret because we didn't want them worrying. That was definitely the right choice too. :)
Here are the videos... Kevin definitely wins the award for looking the coolest!
And some pictures...
Some random things I don't want to forget:
This was SkydiveIndy's second weekend being open for the season.
The big plane that holds 14 people hadn't arrived yet (it was in Florida for the off-season), so that's why we had the tiny plane that had duct tape in it!
My partner had only been in Indiana about 24 hours before we jumped. He usually works for a company in New York, but came to Indiana because they needed more help until the full crew was there.
I didn't realize that skydivers travel so much. Kevin's partner is gone 3-4 months of the year to work in California.
There was the cutest dog at the hanger named Charlie. He helped keep me calm.
The weather was sunny/clear skies and temps in the lower 60s
The sweet couple we chatted with while we waited were Ben & Shelby. They were just dating. I asked if he planned to propose when she came down and he said they weren't ready for that. Bummer! I would have loved to see that!
There was a man in his 80s just hanging out watching people jump. He said he jumped last year on his birthday, but didn't think he was going to this year.
I had a separate photographer that took my pictures and video. Kevin's partner had a GoPro camera attached to his arm and that's how he got his pictures and videos - and that's also why our videos are so different!
