Holy Week and a Tooth

Well, Holy Week has come and gone and it always leaves me tiredly happy.  There's a lot of church-going during Holy Week: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, egg hunt on Saturday, and, of course, Easter Sunday.

This year, Monday night of Holy Week also coincided with the Presbyterian Women's meeting, so rather than bringing Evie to the church, I arranged for her to go to Nathaniel's house to play.  I'm told that they very much enjoyed being together and Nathaniel has been asking for Evie to come play at his house again.

Tuesday was dinner with Granna and Grannadaddy, per usual.  On Thursday, Evie elected to stay home with Daddy instead of coming to the church.  On Friday, Seth was working and I had to read during the Tenebrae service, so Evie came with me but played in the nursery.  Seth happened to get off work early that evening, so we went to Huey's for dinner.  It's rare that the 3 of us go to a restaurant that late in the evening, and we had such a good time being together.  Evie certainly loves her Daddy very much.

Look how much they enjoy each other!

Some time during the week, Evie was watching a show where a kid called her dad the best, and Evie said, "Nuh uh!  My daddy is the best daddy!"

Saturday, Evie and I drove to the church to drop off food for the egg hunt, then went to Granna and Grannadaddy's house for the long-awaited reunion of the cousins.  Even though they just saw each other three weeks ago, they had missed each other quite a bit.  We left to go to the egg hunt at the church, where they each collected an exorbitant amount of eggs, had some lunch food, and played with their second cousins Nyla, Naomi, and Natalie.

Then we went back to Granna and Grannadaddy's house to dye eggs, which always puts me in a predicament, because I love the tradition, but hate the mess (thanks, Grannadaddy, for passing that on to me).

We hung out the rest of Saturday evening, and Dad, Ryan and I went to Easter Vigil while Granna, in her amazingness, kept the kids entertained.  When we got back, Ryan convinced me to let Evie spend the night there because then we could hang out more.  Once the lights went out, Evie took about 30 seconds to fall asleep.

Sunday morning, I drove over and checked on the state of things, brought Evie her Easter dress, and once again imposed on my saint of a mother to take care of Evie while I went to early church and Sunday School.  Granna, Ryan, and the kids arrived for church and then we had lunch afterwards at the church and another egg hunt.

Evie and Nathaniel

The sun was bright, but what I love about this picture is that, to me, my adoration for this girl comes through in the way I'm looking at her.

Grannadaddy drove Evie home, per her request, and that afforded me the opportunity to get this sweet picture.  The little girl who further softened my Dad's heart.

The cousins were quite distraught at being separated from one another, but they'll see each other in about 2 months when Addie and Will come for Evie's birthday.

Evie also had the excitement this week of having her first truly loose tooth.  She woke up Wednesday morning and said her tooth was loose and I doubted, but is definitely on its way out.  I was worried that it would come out over the weekend, so I ran to the bank on Friday to get the special tooth fairy currency: gold dollars; but as of this morning the tooth is still hanging on.

A language funny to report: when we were discussing how most children grow up and move out on their own, Evie declared, "I'mma stay wich you twos!"  I was much amused by her inadvertent AAE dialect.

On Friday, before the Tenebrae service, I read Evie the scripture reading I had been assigned.  It was about the disciples falling asleep while Jesus was praying in the garden.  When I was done, Evie earnestly said, "I would always stay awake for Jesus."

This precious little girl...  She makes me tear up every single day.