He Is Risen

I think Easter has become my favorite holiday. Ask me again at Christmas, but this year, Easter was wonderful. The kids got so excited about the Easter story and loved to hear it over and over. And I do as well and love to share it with them. I love to hear how great God is. How powerful he is so I don't have to be, and can not be.  How much he loves me. How there is nothing I can do to lose his love and his gift of salvation.

I always have intentions of lots of crafts and baking and other Easter-y things to celebrate spring and life and salvation.  I have to remind myself that I have a newborn and it's okay if everything on my to-do list doesn't get checked off. 

We did have plenty of fun though. 
The children decorated Easter cookies.  I think more frosting ended up in the little ones' mouths than on the cookies.

Anna supervised her big brothers and sister.

The boys asked/begged to color eggs for days and were all so excited when the day came.

The day before Easter, we had a fun, no big chores kind of day. We started out the day by making rice krispy treat egg nests. I'm not sure why I didn't take pictures all day long as it would have been full of pretty spring colors. We also went to a local family farm and the kids hunted for eggs, got to hold baby bunnies and chicks, and we all picked strawberries. It was hot that day and very crowded there, but we all had a good time regardless. When we got home, we shredded colored construction paper to use in the baskets instead of the plastic-y basket grass you buy from the store that never seems to go away and you still find strings of it weeks after Easter. Anyways, our accident prone four year old managed to get his pinky caught in the shredder -ouch! He had four little cuts on one finger that bled for too long of a time and we were considering whether he needed to go to the ER for stitches, but we waited it out and his finger is already healing nicely. Chris and I were both standing right there luckily so he didn't get any further injury, but it was still a bummer to our Easter fun for a while and just made me feel like a bad mom.

After about 30 minutes of hysterical crying (seriously), we finished out the day with playing two fun games of croquet in the yard and then the boys found a sprinkler to play with in the backyard.

The kids were so excited to come downstairs and see what awaited them on Easter morning.  I was ready with the video camera to catch the delight on their faces.  They were excited about the candy of course and it was fun to hear them oooh and aaah over the little gifts in their baskets.   

Leah was very excited to try on her new rain boots and her umbrella.  She could barely walk with her boots on but she insisted on keeping them on all morning.  They were a couple of sizes too big, but it's the smallest pair the Easter bunny could find.

It had rained sometime during the night prior to Easter morning but we still wanted to have our egg hunt outdoors, so the kids stayed in their pajamas instead of getting dressed right away.  They didn't care at all that it was wet outside; they were ready to hunt for eggs.  Since she couldn't walk two steps without tripping over her boots, Leah had to stay confined to the patio area with Mommy holding her hand.  She was completely happy with that.

When they were sure that they had collected all of the plastic candy filled eggs, the boys hurried inside to peek inside their eggs.  By the way, Matthew had crazy red eyes in his picture so I used the red eye fixer and now he has crazy black eyes in his picture.  I couldn't decide which was less crazy looking and went with the black.  Either way, he enjoyed his candy.

This sweet little bunny enjoyed her morning full of excitement too.  She sat in her bouncy seat while we made Resurrection Rolls.  By then, we were in a pretty big hurry to get to the 9 o'clock church service on time to do childcare, so I didn't take any pictures of the rolls.  Anyways, the marshmallows were supposed to melt down inside the crescent rolls to leave behind an empty tomb but instead they leaked out of the rolls and made a mess in the oven.  Anna was still impressed though and the boys still got the point of the project.

The boys had another egg hunt at church in the morning and went to the park to fly their new kites from their Easter baskets with Chris while the little girls took a nap.  Matthew's kite ended up getting wrapped around the power lines when he let it go and it flew away.  Poor kid.  Chris said he was upset for a few minutes and then was fine.

That afternoon, the deviled eggs I was making weren't working out well so Chris came to help me in the kitchen and I discouragingly went to lie down for a few minutes with Anna which turned into a nice long three hour nap.  When I woke up, Chris had made a nice Easter dinner, including a ham and some yummy sides.  Have I mentioned that I am married to a great guy?  We finished the evening with some strawberry shortcake, Resurrection eggs to reflect on the specialness of the holiday, and thankfulness for each other, our Savior Jesus Christ, and our salvation through him.