Scenes from Easter!

 

We kicked off Easter with the East City Park Lions Club Egg Hunt on Saturday--which took about 90 seconds! Thankfully, the boys were excited about the seven eggs they found . . . and then they loved sliding at the park (I don't think we've been there since October).

I was so excited for them to enjoy all the Easter goodies that I was awake before 6am, trying to find things to do that wouldn't wake everybody up. Finally, the boys woke up a bit after seven, Sunday morning to find empty Easter baskets outside their bedroom door, and it took a little while for them to figure out that an egg hunt was waiting in the living room--they came across orange shot guns and stick horses (both of which they'd picked out weeks ago, but had forgotten about). They raced into the kitchen and found real Easter Baskets, with more candy, wind-up toys, vibro-toothbrushes and flashlights. Then, after a simple breakfast of more candy, snack-sized sugar cereals (a hit!), fresh cinnamon rolls, and Martinelli's mimosas, they boys went off in search of two final surprises: a parking garage and a Costco plasma car---both of which were purchased for a song apparently due to "assembly required" (after two hours with that garage I was ready to pay four times as much to buy one ready to go).

Church was delightful--I love seeing all the bouquets of white flowers for Easter and glimpsing all our friends' cute kids in their Easter clothes. Home again, I rushed everybody in the door because we'd forgotten to take a pre-church family picture; but it turns out we haven't the foggiest idea how to set our camera for a time-delay, so here's one of Phil and the boys laughing at my dramatic dismay!

We completely got our times all mixed up, and even though we enjoyed having an extra hour to brunch through Sunday morning as church began at 10:30, we brainlessly planned on fixing our contribution for Easter Dinner close to 11:15ish--when we're usually leaving church . . . so our fancy French au gratin became a very garlicky (thank goodness I followed the recipe and just did six cloves rather then the ten Phil stopped me from mincing) mashed potato dish.

So we arrived rather too fashionably late at Nana's house (but she's a gracious hostess and didn't rub it in). The boys loved seeing their three McMurray-side cousins, and Bryce and Colton kept up a running conversation all through dinner--so grown up. We had a fantastic meal, followed by the kids' favorite: a grassy egg hunt! The older kids found their eggs quickly, and then loved cheering on the three younger boys. We had to rip the kids away from playtime and force feed them dessert--cousins are such a treat--and then they were easy to herd toward their Easter baskets (nothing says Happy Easter to 4 and 5 year old like pirate gear and Ironman noise-makers!).

We practiced saying, "He is Risen" to the boys and having them respond, "He is Risen, Indeed!", only they just stuck on, "Indeed!" and bellowed that as cheerfully (and loudly) as possible. I realized that all the Easter discussion was coming out through Bryce's fingertips this morning, as he prayed over his Easter Monday sugar cereal, "Dear God, thank you for this food. Thank you for this day. Thank you providing work for Daddy so he can provide for us. Thank you for sending Jesus to die on the cross to pay for all our sins. Amen."