A Very Happy (and Soggy) Easter

We had a very low-key Easter this year. We got dressed up, took the family photo, and went to Mass. After Mass there was coffee and donuts in the back and an Easter egg hunt. It took about five minutes for all the kids to snatch up the eggs left in piles on every non-muddy surface in the vicinity of the chapel. Just as I was about to force my family into posing for another photo, the sky opened up and we all dashed for our cars in the torrential rain. It poured the whole rest of the day. and we just lazed around the house, watched movies, and ate breakfast for dinner in lieu of the traditional ham and potatoes. Tim was going to be leaving the next day and didn't want to come home to all the leftovers still in the fridge. I didn't mind, though. In fact I love breakfast for dinner and would happily eat that over most traditional holiday meals. I couldn't have asked for a better day.

I needed one good family picture before we left for Mass. One good one and I would be happy. It would have to be an indoor one since it had rained all day and all night. We did it. We got one. This is the first good picture of us as a family of six and I looked at it again and again the whole rest of the day. Last night before we turned out the lights Tim and I looked at it together again. "It's one moment, frozen in time," I mused. "10 minutes later the girls' hair was already a mess, I had spit-up on my dress --"

"You already had spit-up on that dress. Then Timmy's clothes started coming off; by the time we left church his belt was gone, the tie was hanging off the second button, his shirt was untucked.. But we reined in the chaos for a few seconds."

"And for those few seconds we really look like we have it together, don't we?"

Tim knows how important these photos are to me so he set up the camera and tripod the night before for some practice shots.

Shout out to Massachusetts and Ohio!

This time last year, we knew we'd have baby number 4 with us by next Easter, but it was so hard to imagine.