Easter 2011

We started early.  As in out the door at 5:45, two kids in tow.

(Our county courthouse.)

I never really thought about holding a sunrise service in the middle of town.  (The last few years, our services have been in the middle of nowhere, which tends to be pretty dark.)  But in the middle of Butler, there are lights blazing all night long, which changes the effect slightly.

Our church sits across a public park from the courthouse, so this year we took our folding chairs and guitars and headed to the park.

It was a little different, but not much.
We still had geese honking in flight overhead.
For a new twist, we had a freight train pulling through town during communion.  (Certainly brightened Micah's day!  Easter, candy, and a train!)

Home, changed clothes, back to church.
Baskets of candy, requisite pictures outside.
A gray, rainy morning; joy-filled nonetheless.

And while the kids headed to Grandma & Granddad's house for Easter egg fun, Todd and I embarked on a new Easter Day tradition---an Easter hike on our acreage.  The sun actually tiptoed out and brightened things a bit while we were outside, which was an added bonus.

We found a cool spot which holds the promise of trillium blooming in a few weeks.

The nonstop rain has been excellent encouragement for our already-moist wetland to grow an exuberant showing of skunk cabbage.

We found an unknown-to-us wetland plant.  (Okay, unknown to me.  Todd thinks it's a kind of cattail.)

Water, water everywhere...

 So much water, there are spots where it is bubbling up directly from the ground.  (Can you see the hole in the center of the puddle?  It's one of many spots in our wetland where the water just bursts from the ground.  Cool stuff!)

Celebrating Easter Day in the beauty of His creation.
To God alone be the glory.
:)

Five Minute Friday: The Hard Love

Today I'm tagging along with Lisa-Jo over at The Gypsy Mama for Five Minute Friday.

The rules are as follows:
Set the timer for five minutes.
Write.
No erasing---just see what comes out without the worry of whether it's "right" or not.

* * * * *

3:26 p.m.---GO

The Hard Love is love you didn't know you had inside you.  For me, it didn't come out until I had children of my own.  (Now sometimes it feels like all I have is hard love!)

By Hard Love, I refer to what others would call tough love.  Making someone do something they don't want to do because it will (eventually) improve their life.  Alternately, telling someone they can't have xyz because you know it isn't best for them.

Today, that looks like making my kids sit on their beds and read for a chunk of time because I know they're getting would up---the kind of wound up that will result in a trip to the ER.

It also looks like making my daughter redo schoolwork that wasn't done properly the first time.  Not work that she struggled with, mind you.  Work that she slacked on because "she's tired of school"...  

It's a good thing that they don't tell you about Hard Love at the hospital.  When you leave, amidst the instructions for feeding every so many hours, it seems that someone should say, "Oh by the way, you should practice tough love.  It's a trick you'll need to pull out of your bag just about every day for, oh, the next eighteen years..."

STOP---3:31 p.m.

Eating s'mores at Lutherlyn for Open House last weekend.  They don't look like they would require much hard love, do they?  See---it's deceptive!  That's why God makes kids so cute...