Easter 2012

We spent Friday and Saturday before Easter at my parents' house. The extended family came over for a late lunch and egg hunts. So fun! We ate a bit later than planned so we ended up staying through early evening instead of heading back (well that and the traffic took us over twice as long to get home! The kids were bummed to miss our neighborhood egg hunt, but we enjoyed relaxing with mom and dad and not just rushing from one thing to the next. Chris is helping me learn to slooooow down and choose from activities, not choose all activities. :) ).

Family picture:



Hunting eggs! Mom color coded the eggs so they all got stuff and we could hide them age appropriately. There was some candy stickers and dollar bills. I do not recall ever receiving money in eggs as a child! The kids touched my heart when they each decided on their own to give $1 of their $5 dollars "to Jesus" in the offering plate.



Ryan thrilled with his eggs...



Simply could not be bothered to slow down for a picture. :)



Post-hunt picture. Some were more obliging than others...



On Easter morning I woke up and left for church while everyone else slept peacefully. :) The music was gorgeous and I truly enjoyed the morning. Props to Chris for getting them all dressed and arrived on time. :) Unfortunate scenario of the morning, the ac went out at church. I do not recall a time of being that hot for that long. The girl sitting next to me on the stage said, "you look green. You should do something about that.". Indeed, I almost got sick I was so hot...so I slipped out during the second sermon! Chris brought the kids home and got Jack to bed before I ever made it home. I took an awesome nap then got up to prepare out Easter dinner--grilled lamb, rice and asparagus. Anna-Kate's sweet friend, Marin, and her family came over for an egg hunt and dessert (pound cake, vanilla icecream and fresh strawberries...yum.) afterwards. Such fun. Overall a lovely day with my family to contemplate the love of our Savior.

Good thing we got a picture yesterday...didn't manage to get a picture of all 5 of us on Easter. Hmm.



This year I thought to myself, "self, how hard could it be to make basket liners for Easter baskets? Surely it wouldn't take long and it would be so much cheaper than $40 a piece from pottery barn kids..." {insert "famous last words"}. I found a tutorial on pinterest and set off. Pinterest FAIL. I spend hours trying to make Anna-Kate's following the online tutorial. I finally threw it away and started over, developing my own pattern in the process. Let's just say, it was much easier that way and I was able to get all of them finished in a couple of hours. They were exactly how I wanted them. Yay!



I made a scavenger hunt for the kids to follow to find their baskets. I think they all got a huge kick out of it. Anna-Kate loved reading the clues and the big kids were totally into solving the "riddles". Jack just loved running around following them. :)



Ryan was so excited to find his basket! He was jumping up and down.



Jack was just thrilled to find a Peep and get to eat it--before dinner. You can tell he doesn't get candy too often. Ha!



New ball caps for the big kids...





He really got into egg hunting this year. We let him out the door first with a minute head start and he ran from egg to egg scooping them up.



Anna-Kate and Marin.



I love that Anna-Kate and Ryan are such buddies...I pray they will always remain close.



All of the kids, post egg hunt. :)