Reviving a tradition

We are big into traditions in our family, especially holiday traditions. I have noticed, however, as our boys are getting older, that a few of our traditions have sadly begun to fall by the wayside. (I'm thinking, for example, of how we always used to make pumpkin cookies at Halloween and deliver them clandestinely to neighbors, visit the Pumpkin Patch as a family, and read our Christmas advent book together every night of December. This year we even--gasp!!--failed to make a gingerbread house at Christmastime.) While, of course, we still maintain lots and lots of traditions, I've felt especially bad about some of these fading away before our 8-year-old Caden has gotten remotely tired of them. 

On the Friday night before Easter, Tim announced that he thought it was high time that we dyed some eggs. Caden made his own announcement: he had never in his life dyed eggs. What?! Who knew it had been so long? Sometimes traditions need reviving. 

Getting started!

Measuring....

Shrink-wrapped eggs?! What next?

And a good time was had by all!

Early the next morning: no worries,
the Easter basket tradition is still going strong!
(PS Tristan was already gone serving breakfast at a shelter.)

Follow the leader

After a hiatus from my blog as I pondered and debated about what, really, the focus of my blog was, and who, really, my audience was, and how, really, I could write about what was important to me while imagining it would be remotely relevant to anybody else...it's come to this: posting nothing is preserving no thoughts, memories, or photos whatsoever, so I best just "get on with it." Whatever will be will be.

As I uploaded some recent photos from my phone, I saw this one:

We had gone on a walk after dinner a couple nights ago, and the boys seemed to be playing "Follow the Leader"--un-planned and un-posed. I thought back to when Caden was about 4, and he said, "I like being the smallest in our family, because I can do lots of things nobody else can do." At the time, he was underneath a bush, weeding. So I said, "Like weed under the bush?" And he said, "Yes. And you can watch your biggest brother make mistakes, and then your next brother make mistakes, and you can choose to do something different!" I thought this was quite profound for a four-year-old! But it also made me so grateful that he could also watch his big brothers NOT making mistakes--which is much of the time--and he could choose to do exactly the same thing. I am so grateful for three boys who get along so well and for wonderful big brothers who don't mind a bit that the ones behind them want to follow in their footsteps.

And finally, I am ever so grateful that I have a big brother, too, whose footsteps I still try to follow in. I am thankful for how he "paves the way" for me and my siblings. I am blessed.