A number of my kids have expressed unhappiness tonight that they have to go back to school tomorrow. But we did pack a lot into this spring break. I wrote about the Indy + Chicago trip in my last post. Then this weekend featured quite a bit of singing!
My chamber choir performed Anthony Mosakowski’s Passion (according to John) during the Good Friday evening service. (That is not my choir performing in this recording, but in case anyone wants to listen to the piece.) There are probably not a great many churches that would go for a 28-minute a cappella work with much dissonance as part of a worship service, so I am grateful for that. We sounded decent and made it through thanks to some strategic pitch pipe usage (the chant and narration would always come back to A, so a pitch pipe was very useful!).
My children did not come hear us sing the passion. They all went with my husband to see the Super Mario Brothers movie. Oh well. I’m not sure they would have made it through 28 minutes of a cappella dissonance.
Saturday we had sitter coverage for the 3-year-old for several hours, which allowed for some actual leisure + time with the big kids. I went for a 5.5 mile run in the morning, played the piano for a while, played outside with the 8-year-old (we dig in the dirt…), took the 15-year-old to the gym (we are training for a 5k together next month!) and then went on a hot date to Wegmans and Costco with my husband. (Anytime it is just the two of us it counts as a hot date.) We planned to do the bulk of our shopping at Wegmans and then just get a few things at Costco, but as usual the “few things” turned into a few more things…
In our defense, we were hosting many members of my extended family for an Easter dinner so we got a very large tenderloin, and a small ham, just to split the difference.
We dyed eggs in the early evening…the 3-year-old spilled the green dye all over the place and then I managed to spill the red dye, so I was scrubbing that up for a while. My husband took the older three kids to see Into the Woods downtown in Philly on Saturday night. I hung out with the little guys and finished my puzzle. The 8-year-old and I read Calvin & Hobbs cartoons out loud, each of us choosing a character (I was Hobbs for a while to his Calvin…)
Fortunately, despite the late night (Into the Woods is 3 hours long!) the Easter Bunny still came and left five baskets and hid the four dozen boiled and dyed eggs around the house. We think we found all of them this morning but no one is entirely sure.
Not all the kids were thrilled to be woken up at 7:50 a.m. for an Easter egg hunt, but my call time was 8:30 a.m. at church. We sang the Hallelujah chorus and Worthy is the Lamb (plus the Amen chorus) from the Messiah. We had to sing these once in warm up, then once at the 9:30 service and once at the 11:00 service. So, a lot of intense singing!
Then it was home to cook and get ready. My parents, my little brother and his wife, and my grown-up niece (who is the daughter of my older brother) came over. We ate, walked around to see the flowers, and had hot cross buns.
After they left, my 15-year-old wanted to go to Starbucks, so I took him, and the 3-year-old begged to go along, and he got in the car, and fell asleep on the way home. Since it was 7 p.m., and he hadn’t had a nap, I put him straight into his bed, and so far he has stayed asleep. Here’s hoping that continues to morning, and this wasn’t just a really really ill-timed nap…
Love the reading of Calvin and Hobbes and splitting the dialogue! I have a “Calvin” and enjoy reading these to him now, but as he learns to read, this is a great idea!!
@Erin – this was my son’s idea! It works pretty well for cartoons as it tends to be back and forth a fair amount.
Ah, we read Narwhal and Jelly and I wonder if alternating roles would work with that. I’m convinced my early reader could do it, but he finds them daunting for some reason. Good shout!