Easter 2013

This year we decided to try things a little differently.  Usually our Sundays are so hectic and crazy with church and dinner and life in general, then toss in Easter baskets and an Easter egg hunt...yeah, the day is done and everyone is tired and cranky and we really never took much time (except at church) to even think about Jesus and and his life, death and resurrection and the blessings of the Atonement. Everything is mixed up with Cadbury eggs and who found the most eggs and jelly beans. So, since this year Brian's schedule worked out and he was home on Saturday, I thought, let's have the Easter Bunny come on Saturday!  The E.B. is pretty flexible...he had no problem accomodating us. And since it was such a nice day, he hid the eggs outside...we've got a nice big yard so our 25 dyed eggs and 13 (10 little and 3 big) plastic eggs were nicely spread out. That wouldn't have worked on Easter - it was rainy a good part of the day.

Saturday morning we dyed the eggs...the first round wasn't enough so I boiled another 10 or so.  Later that afternoon, after Grace had been asleep for an hour or so, the boys decided to go hang out in their room so the E.B. could come...they closed the door and everything. I was walking up and down the hall putting away laundry and they thought the bunny was jumping around. Once Grace woke up, they discovered that there were Easter baskets on the couch with a note that told them the eggs were outside.

 Sunday we enjoyed Church. All three kids sang with the Primary during Sacrament meeting - even Grace got up there. I think this is the first time all three kids have sung together with the Primary. Grace didn't know all the words, but she made sure to chime in on the Hosanna choruses :) 
Both Brian and I teach every Sunday now - he gets to teach teenagers and I get to teach 5 year olds. I only had two kids this week - the rest were all visiting family elsewhere.

After Church we were having dinner at my parents. We didn't get there as quick as planned because Brian was helping someone. So I took pictures of the kids in front of the church...I'd wanted to be sure to get pictures of them before they changed out of their nice clothes...looking back at last year's pictures I saw that I'd not done that. So I think Grace wore this same dress last year, but there's no proof that we did a repeat ;)  I swear, it takes a miracle to get all three of them to look at me at the same time and have their eyes opened, looking the right way and a smile of sorts on their faces.  I did get some cute pictures, though.

Dinner was delicious...both my grandmas were there as well as my sister Sarah and her husband Dave who had surprised us all when they came up from Sacramento the day before. After dessert we headed home for naps for most of us and then time to get Brian packed and ready to head to Redding for his clinicals. We ended the day reading in John 20 about Christ's resurrection.  All in all a very lovely Easter.

I love how they all three finally cooperated - all have their eyes closed!