Our Easter

Despite my desire for a change in pace, this Easter turned out to be a typical Granger holiday, celebrated in the typical Granger pandemonium. Andy and I decided (after trying to fit a million things into one short weekend) to just stay put for Easter and spend it quietly and simply at home. How did we plan to accomplish this simple, quiet holiday, you ask? Well, we decided not to drive to Andy's parents house since the hour and a half long drive back and forth gets a little difficult on holidays. We decided not to go over to my dad's house. We decided, instead, to make a quick trip to my Grandma's house and then to spend the rest of the day at our house. What else did we do to "simplify" the holiday? We decided to cook a huge Easter dinner and tell everyone in our family they could drop by if they were up for it. So, yeah, what followed our brilliant decision making process was less than simple, if you can imagine.

Easter, for us, began at 8:00 a.m--

8:00 a.m: Andy gets up and gets ready to go to church.
8:30 a.m: Andy tries for the first time to wake me up.
9:00 a.m: Andy tries again to wake me up.
9:15 a.m: I finally get up to take a shower (& blame Andy for not
making me get up earlier--ha ha!).
9:40 a.m: I am almost ready and begin to get a very cranky Landon
dressed. (Cranky in the morning? Wonder where he gets it?)
9:55 a.m: We are officially late for 10:00 Mass at Prince of Peace
& plan on making it to the 11:00 a.m. Mass at St. Mary's
downtown instead.
9:55-10:45 a.m: Running around the house, peeking through Landon's
Easter basket, making breakfast, packing bags of
toys and extra clothes and snacks and doing who
knows what else--blah!
11:05 a.m: We are officially late for the 11:00 a.m. Mass
(!!!) downtown and find out there is another
Mass starting at 11:15 in the church gym. (By this time,
we are running like crazy, clothes wrinkled, hair flying
all over the place, shoes covered in mud...I was a
little irrate, but on a mission!)
11:35 a.m: Landon has put in an impressive good, solid ten
minutes sitting quietly in church and is pretty
much done. All snacks are gone and sneaky tries at
diverting his attention from his shenanigans are
exhausted. My "mom hisses" and threats and even my
frantic bribes were being completely disregarded.
11:40 a.m: After watching Landon try out soccer moves all over the
bleachers and chairs of the church/gym (imagining loudly
that his white dress shoes are soccer cleats and his
white knee high socks are shin guards), Andy escorts
Landon outside so I can get at least something
out of the Mass I worked so hard to get to--PHEW!

I still don't understand how in the world we can manage to be late for something we had so much time to prepare for! *sigh*

Anyways, after church,Landon met his second cousin, Cam, for the first time. They are the same age age and hit it off right away (sassy little things!). The two of them immediately ran off together and proceeded to ruin their Easter outfits, climbing trees and chasing each other in the dirt--Ha ha ha! They were so cute together!

We zipped over to my Grandma's for lunch right after church and then raced back home to finish cleaning and begin cooking....One green bean casserole (totally homemade--no canned stuff--Woo hoo!), one pan of Macaroni and cheese, one corn souffle, one sweet potato casserole, and one tray of cheese-stuffed-bacon-wrapped chicken breasts later, dinner was ready. (Hey, be quiet, comfort food is never pretty! Ha ha!)
My mom and step-dad, sister and her fiance, Michael, Michael's mom & my three brothers (and two of their girlfriends) all kicked back with us in our living room, eating big plates of food and hanging out. As I said before, when there's a room full of Grangers (and everybody's a comedian!), things can get pretty rowdy. There were channels being flipped on t.v., YouTube videos being played on the computer, forty loud conversations being held over under and across each other and, later, we proved once again, that no family get-together is ever complete without playing ROCK BAND!!!! By the end of the marathon night (about midnight), my eardrums were five seconds from shattering, my house was a huge mess and I had decided I didn't want to see food again (to eat it or to cook it) for about a month! It was a the opposite in every way from what we planned, but it was FANTASTIC...So, am I complaining? No way! It was as loud and as hectic as ever, but I wouldn't change anything about it for the world...,>!! and I would do it all over again the exact same way next year if everyone else was game. I can never get enough of my crazy family! :o) So, that's about it for today! I hope all of you had a great Easter and that those of you who have blogs will post tons of pics for me to see!