Shades of Sundays Past

"The boys are in trouble!" Dacia said. "They are being punished after church!"

YES!! I get to punish the boys! Ok, so what is the punishment?

"They are going to sit on the couch at home after church, quietly and reverently, for one hour!"

That's right! That'll teach 'em!

Wait a minute, that sounds familiar. Didn't I have the same punishment several times as a young hooligan? Hmmm...I'm trying to remember if it worked. I don't think so. If I remember right, it just ended up frustrating Grandma Gray even more until she finally threw up her hands in despair and retreating from the living room muttering to herself in dismay. No wait, yeah, that's right! I was the good one! The only reason I had to receive the punishment was to show Jon and Rob-the actual perpetrators-how to sit quietly, cuz I was so good at it! Yeah, that's how it all went down...

So what was the behavior that caused Dacia's frustration?

January 7, 1997- Dacia meets a loud-mouthed RM in her Music Theory 101 class...

December 20, 1997- Dacia marries said loud-mouthed RM...

2001-2007- Dacia then decides to have 3 boys (don't forget the one on the way! just guessing as to its gender)...

Fast forward until this morning....

Dacia gets out of bed early to ready herself for church. Showers, shaves, all the rest.

8am-Dacia wakes up the boys and gets them breakfast. Eats a bowl of cereal herself. Jason is asleep.

8:30-Dacia blowdries her hair. She sets Jonah and Jonathan up with instructions to get dressed.

8:45-Dacia finishes her hair, then yells at Jonah and Jonathan to hurry up and get dressed. She hunts around for clothes for Spencer.

8:55-Jonah and Jonathan have turned on the computer to play video games. Dacia finally finds the outfit she wants to dress Spencer in.

9:10-Dacia yells at Jonah and Jonathan, who are playing computer games. In their pjs. They all begin a hunt for their church clothes.

9:20-Dacia finds the last of their clothes; ties and belts. She then starts to apply her makeup.

9:35-Dacia starts to look for Spencer's socks and shoes. She finds Spencer out on the deck. He has learned how to unlock and open the sliding glass door.

9:47-Dacia has finished combing all 3 boys' hair. Jason wakes up and gets out of bed to shower.

9:58-The whole family loads into car to go to church.

10:00-Family piles out of the car. We arrive just in time for choir rehearsal, which Dacia conducts. Jason tries to hide his yawns.

11:05-Sacrament meeting starts.

11:11-Opening Hymn and Prayer are done; Spencer is thrashing about and arching his back, screraming, trying to free himself from Dacia's arms. Books, toys, and crayons have failed to calm him. Dacia's white blouse has been colored blue in places.

11:25-Ward business is finishing and Sacrament Hymn begins.

11:26-Jason takes Spencer out of the chapel.

11:40-Sacrament is over, Dacia leaves Jonah and Jonathan in chapel to switch with Jason taking care of Spencer.

11:45-Dacia returns to chapel grumbling to herself, not having found Jason or Spencer. She sits down to find only Jonathan is remaining, and he is looking around planning his escape. "Jonah had to go to the bathroom. Can I go?"

11:55-Jonah has returned, with Jonathan, from the bathroom. Jonathan starts climbing over and under and around the bench. Jonah starts giggling, and snapping his fingers in the ears of the children of the Morgan family sitting in front of them. Dacia is trying to silence Jonah and Jonathan.

12:05-Jonathan is laying on his back under the bench. Jonah is alternating snapping his fingers in the Morgan's ears, and tickling Jonathan underneath him, giggling all the while. They are ignoring Dacia altogether. She is grumbling to herself wondering if Jason has gone back home with Spencer. Jonah asks Dacia, "How many more minutes 'til the meeting is over?"

12:15-Final speaker finishes her address: Jonah starts clapping, excited that the meeting is almost over. Dacia is mortified about the clapping, informs Jonah they are going to be punished after church. Jonah asks with wide eyes the nature of the impending punishment. Dacia tells him (see first lines of post) and Jonah starts crying, turns and repeats to Jonathan, whose lips start to quiver and says, "Oh no!" in a small voice.

12:18-One verse of closing hymn and prayer are over. Jonah and Jonathan-punishment forgotten-are off like shots to their primary classes.

12:25-Jason wanders back into the chapel after having dropped Spencer off at nursery. He flops onto the bench next to Dacia (who has her head buried in her arms, leaning on the back of the bench in front of her) and he says, "I'm exhausted! I had to chase Spencer in and out and around the chapel during the whole thing! I didn't get a thing out of that meeting."

Easter Pics and Vids...

Here is the Gray Family Easter Egg Hunt. It has been a tradition for some 30 years, ever since I can remember. So here's the deal. My mom would prepare hundreds of plastic eggs filling them with pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and candy and hide them all over the yard. When we were growing up, the eggs we colored and dyed were hidden along with the plastic eggs, and were part of our breakfast once the hunt was over. The grand finale was one egg that was gold, and was the special egg, that usually had one or two dollar bills in it. Whoever found the egg was hot stuff, and it was usually the hardest one to find. As we grew older, the Golden Egg had more money in it. Now that we all have kids, we still would haul them over to Grandma Gray's for the Hunt. Well, this year Grandma and Grandpa Gray went on vacation over Easter weekend, so Diedre and Dacia got together and planned and prepared the whole thing over at Rob and Diedre's place, filling all the eggs, decorating, and preparing for the breakfast. Then Diedre hid all the eggs, and decided we didn't have enough and bought and hid more. So we had Rob and Diedre with their two boys, Caleb and Peter (Willie was asleep) and Stephen, and Dacia and our boys, Jonah, Jonathan, and Spencer.

Ok, so I uploaded the pictures on the small size, in the hopes that you could see more without taking up more real estate. Oh well...Click on the photos for larger size.



The kids staring out into the backyard with barely contained anticipation. If it were me, I would say we were scoping out routes for optimum egg gathering strategies...Since it wasn't me, I think they were just looking outside thinking about all the pretty colors.



In case you missed it, Spencer is the first one out, and is stepping over the bright, pretty eggs on his way to somewhere else. Eggs are kinda hard to see because of the size of the video player.




This is the way Spencer rolls...At first I thought he was defending his egg loot...Nope. He just found himself a bigger stick to swing.







The reckoning...






Spencer, the Destroyer...