Easter Sunday

I love the way we take care of the secular celebration on Saturday, then on Easter Sunday our hearts turn to the sacred and reverent meaning of the holiday. 

On Sunday morning, David and I watched some of the Bible Videos from lds.org that showed the events in the Savior's last week on earth. It was humbling to watch it with David, so acutely aware of the pain that Jesus suffered on our behalf. I was hesitant to show David too much of the suffering, simply so it wouldn't scare him--so we watched just enough for David to understand that Jesus got "owies" from those who wanted him to die. In family night last week, we talked about the resurrection in the form of a glove analogy I heard in Primary when I was a little girl. With the reminder of that lesson, David was able to understand a great deal about Jesus' death and resurrection. His understanding was really evident while we watched the movies and discussed what was happening to Jesus. The gospel is so simple to children!

On Sunday evening we had friends over for dinner, then we made garden tombs out of salt dough. This was an idea I got from my brother's family last year, and now it is part of the Easter traditions in our home.

Can you see that sunlight streaming in behind us? This picture was taken at 8 pm--and we are so glad for that glorious sunshine!

 We got the basic design down, then David layered on piles of salt dough and added the landscaping at his leisure. It was a very forgiving project for his little hands--the more he added, the better it looked!

Happy Easter!

or, as the Romanians say when they greet each other on Easter,

Person 1: Christ was resurrected!

Person 2: It is true, He was resurrected!

Easter Saturday

Growing up, the Easter Bunny never came to our house. And it was somehow okay.

We always had new spring dresses, fresh from Mom's sewing machine.

And we always joined our cousins, grandparents, aunts, and uncles for a Saturday Easter egg hunt.

When we moved to Utah, mom and dad recreated this tradition with years of hosting a pancake breakfast and an Easter egg hunt in their backyard on the Saturday before Easter.

I have a theme here in Alaska:

Friends are the new family.

Inspired by my friend Cathie, who put together a spontaneous Easter egg hunt at a park between general conference sessions two years ago, I have decided to carry on this tradition with our friends.

Last year we used the park.

I sent out an evite, and the first person to respond said she was going to bring homemade ice cream. I think some recently transplanted families were still under the illusion that Easter = Spring.

Not true in Alaska.

Last year at the park most of the families froze.

But it was still fun, and it gave a lot of families the chance to participate in an Easter egg hunt.

So this year I wanted to do it again.

With the volume of snow we have received this year, and the 2-3 feet that still covers most grassy areas, I knew the park would not be the best place for the event. So this year we reserved the church parking lot, then at the last minute moved it inside to the gym.

It serves me right that it snowed on my own parade, and forced me to adjust plans accordingly. I was one of those Anchorage-ites that was hoping for the record breaking snow fall to happen. And happen it did--right during the event I was hosting that was supposed to usher in spring.

From the warmth of the gym, we had 72 friends gather for a potluck lunch. It was really ideal to have the church gym available to us--because outside the snow was heavy and wet, and puddles were everywhere in the parking lot. it would have been a cold, wet, miserable experience to have the entire event outdoors--especially with so many tiny children!

But true to our Alaskan way, we moved the egg hunt to the snow piles outdoors. Someone had come to the church parking lot and made huge snow piles for us--so it was truly the perfect place for a real egg hunt!

We had a 3 and under hunt, then a hunt for the older kids. David was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got stampeded by the older kids when they were told to "GO!" I felt bad for him--he was face down in the snow and all of his eggs fell out of his basket into the snow.

He shed a few tears, then got right up and let the excitement continue. Here is David just a few minutes after his take-down. This kid has a knack for brushing off and finding a smile!

 (The only evidence we captured that it was snowing during the egg hunt--that streak of a snowflake going from David's nose to his chin.)

Happy Easter!

Snow Play

We are about 4 inches away from surviving the snowiest winter on record here in Anchorage.

We've had so much snow, we may as well reach record--and we're still holding out hope for a record-breaking snowfall sometime in the month of April. Snowstorms are common in April, so we can hope.

Here's David out our back door on a day that he trekked outside hoping to play in the snow. As a point of reference, the gray box in the front is one of those sterilite 30 gallon capacity tubs--and he's higher than the lid by quite a bit. On this particular day, he played outside for about 20 minutes until he lost a boot in the snow.

Daddy has since achieved hero status by digging out the boot.

Arizona Gold

I got lucky when my brother Trent found an orange tree to strip of its fruit just as the new blossoms were about to come on. I brought back a box of Valencia juice oranges from my trip to Utah, and we were in orange heaven for a few days while we ate them up.

Every morning before school, one of us would be asked to go out to one of our 15 orange trees and pick enough oranges for fresh orange juice for the family. Then we would bring them in and juice them. Sometimes we had two juicers delivering juice to the same bowl, because we probably juiced 40-50 oranges every morning--and cut all of those in half to fit the spinning juicer, and the whole process was quite a chore. But we did it willingly because the end result was pure gold. To this day, it's hard for me to drink any of the orange juice from a store shelf--having freshly squeezed for the first 17 years of my life has created in me a "citrus snob."

But my favorite story about Arizona citrus was my senior year of high school, after we moved to Utah. My sister and I were a junior and senior, respectively--and we were trying to make friends in our new high school. We hadn't sold our home in Arizona yet, and one of the neighbors was being a dear and picking the fruit from our trees and shipping it to us in Utah. We were in the high school lunch room, surrounded by potential new friends at our new school. I removed an Arizona grapefruit from my lunch sack, when Monica slammed her hand on the lunch table, stood up, and loudly exclaimed, "Don'tcha know you're spose'd to stand when fruit from Arizona comes out of the bag!?!!!" And she did all of this with a completely serious face.

All eyes from the surrounding tables turned to look at the girl who was proclaiming her undying love for Arizona citrus fruit. 

I laughed so hard because Monica, in all of her drama, looked like she was really serious about her allegiance to Arizona fruit. And I couldn't decide if what she had done was cool or not in front of all the other students we were trying to make friends with.

All of these years later, the verdict is in. It was one of the coolest things that Monica ever did.
And Monica lives in Arizona, never again to leave the beloved fruit of that desert land.

Independent Soul

Independent (adj.) . . .

not influenced or controlled by others in matters of opinion, conduct, etc.; thinking or acting for oneself: an independent thinker. (according to dictionary.com)

What exactly does an independent soul look like in a three year old? Well, it makes me want to giggle--a lot. Here are a few illustrations.

1. A few months ago, our smoke alarm started beeping every 30 seconds. We thought it was a battery problem, so Daddy promptly removed it and put in new batteries. Of course David watched and inquired with wide-eyed wonder. Another bit of information--I've had bad luck with kitchen timers--they have only worked for a few weeks at the most, then something goes wrong and I am again left without a working timer. Thus, David is not accustomed to hearing a beeping timer.

When I replaced the timer again this last week, I was thrilled to use it for baking something last night. Apparently I was upstairs when the timer started beeping and David took things into his own hands. He got a chair, reached the timer's perch high on the fridge, promptly removed the battery, then returned the timer to the fridge. In not having a timer for so long, I have developed a 6th sense--part smell, some of it "timing" on when to remove baked goods from the oven. So yesterday I followed my sense and removed the cookie bars without thinking twice about why the timer hadn't alerted me to do so. (Sam will tell you the sense is only 95% accurate--which is why I've repeatedly tried to replace the kitchen timer.)

In passing, long after I had removed my baked goods from the oven, David told me the tale of the timer that beeped, and how it had low batteries. But I didn't put it all together until I went to use the timer again this morning and it was missing its battery. I asked David again, and he reminded me that the timer was beeping, so the batteries were low--and this time he mentioned how he taken care of the problem by discarding the batteries.

I'm still giggling about my poor timer. 

2. The next one was at someone else's house. My friend told me that while she watched David and I was in Utah, he used her restroom. A couple of hours later, he confided, "There was something blue in your toilet, so I just threw it away."

Um. Blue like a 2000 Flushes tablet.

3. At least David is really thoughtful in his independence. Every single morning he'll wake up, walk down to the kitchen and first order of business is eating a yogurt. He also gets one out for Sam and me, and puts one at our places. If he finishes his yogurt before we eat ours, then he'll dive right in and help us out. It's the thought that counts, right?

4. Perhaps the best asset that comes with such an independent soul is David's ability to problem solve.
Who says he has to let short legs prevent him from using the pedals on the piano!?!

Legacy

Two weeks ago, I waved goodbye to a brave daddy and a pajama clad little boy standing in the airport. I headed to Utah to be with my mom and some of my sisters as we attended Legacy--it's a women's conference for the mothers in our extended Andersen family. There were 150 mothers and women in attendance--spanning four generations. It was just what the doctor ordered.

From some of our recent posts, I'm sure you can see that we've been through some struggles lately in parenting. Just some things that we've needed to figure out about how to best teach our son, and it seemed for a long time that the harder we tried, the more he resisted. I knew we had to find a reset button soon in order to keep peace in our home. I also knew that it wasn't my son's fault that we were having these struggles. I felt strongly that we could and would find something to work with all the gifts and talents he has been blessed with--among those is a voracious curiosity and a very independent spirit.

One night I awoke with the inspiration to attend Legacy. I only had a week to run the idea by Sam, book a ticket, and make arrangements for David in my absence.

I'll admit that I was a little worried about leaving Sam with the full parenting responsibility when we were at a phase of "all hands on deck." And the travel plans worked out so I would be gone a full eight days. I booked the ticket in spite of it all, and what's more, I didn't cancel the flight no matter how many times I thought about how challenging it might be for Sam to do a week of single parenting.

Sam finally said, "You never know, Carmin. This just might be my week to shine." After that, I quit worrying about the home dynamics and I enjoyed my trip. And I felt really grateful to three different families who had David in their home while Sam was at work. Sam took two days off, and that filled out the week. Sam really shined, just like he knew he could!

I soaked up the messages of Legacy--the reminders of why we do what we do as wives and mothers. I heard a few pragmatic details as well, but mostly I came away with the vision of womanhood. It was truly inspiring, and it gave me so many reasons to feel grateful for our little family.

Yes, it was just the reset button my heart needed. It was the vision from the conference, but also the longing for my family while I was away. I was absolutely determined to return to my home more prepared to cherish the good moments and push through the hard. More than anything, I wanted to return home prepared to offer David the very best in parenting skills I could. I was reminded that those skills come only when we are close to the spirit--which means living in a way that the promptings can be part of my every day life. I feel beckoned to a higher path with this motivating charge.

Perhaps the most rewarding thing is that I came home to a little boy with a much softer heart towards his mama. He hasn't been aggressive towards me at all in the week since I've come home--oh, how we were struggling with that before I left! And his tantrums are significantly less--which is a tremendous blessing to the peace of our home. He's so expressive in his love for us, and since I've come home even David seems to know a little better what a blessing it is to be in a family. Or as he says it, "Let's be MommyDaddyDavid."

Today I was tickling David and he said,

"Mommy, you're my favorite little girl."

Then he tried to correct himself,

"Mommy, you're my favorite little Mommy."

He finally settled on his last attempt,
"Mommy, you're my favorite big Mommy."

Oh, thank you, little buddy. I love you, too.

You're definitely my favorite little boy.

Iditarod 40

This may have been the most exciting Iditarod we've seen since moving to Anchorage--simply because we got a sneak peek of the sport through a Discovery Channel special. The Toughest Race on Earth is a 6-series documentary covering the 2008 Iditarod. We found a few more mushers that we really like--Martin Buser came out on top for many reasons. I thought his photo finish this year with his son Rohn was classy--it's the case of a father being a true mentor to his son, and it was true to Martin's character.

Another reason was because my parents have had a long friendship with the Seaveys. They met Mitch and Janine in 1998 when they first brought my siblings to Alaska (I was on my mission at the time), and have exchanged letters and books with this family for the last 14 years. When they came up last summer, my parents and sister attended Dallas Seavey's Ididaride show in downtown Anchorage--and got to have dinner at a private table with Dallas. Needless to say, we were all thrilled when Dallas won this year's Iditarod.

 We've gone to the same spot for the last 3  years--but somehow we never knew about the free hot dogs and chili. Clearly David approved! (Although he didn't approve of wearing his hat in such freezing temps.)

 The mushers were handed a free hot dog from the Horizon tent that sponsored the free lunch, then a box of girl scout cookies a few yards later. A couple of the dog teams lost focus and veered off the trail to head into the hot dog tent--so it was a good thing that all of this was for fun and show, not for the race.

 Daddy helped David stay off the trail and try to stay warm (which was kind of hard with a bare head).

David had fun in the snow while we watched a few mushing teams pass. We caught the middle of the pack--so we saw Lance Mackey and Dallas Seavey come by with their champion dogs, along with at least a dozen other teams.

Here's how David really felt about posing for the picture with his parents.

 But luckily my friend clicked fast enough that we got a neutral looking photo as well.