Easter

We had a nice family Easter Sunday last weekend. First thing in the morning, we watched some church Easter videos on YouTube. The resurrection is HOPE, LIGHT, TRUTH, and JOY! We all felt good after watching those videos and thinking about it all. After the religious segment of the morning, I helped the girls get fancied up while Jeff hid some eggs in the front yard and Jay prowled around trying not to peek. Then we had an Easter egg hunt. I suffered a pang of conscience the Saturday before Easter when I saw various friends posting pictures of Easter egg hunts a day early. "Should we be keeping the religion and the pastel plastic on separate days?" I wondered. I quickly remembered that I am really just a no-frills-mama, so we did all of our Easter-ing in one day--from religion to eggs--and it worked just fine like it does every year. The kids seem to understand that eggs and candy have nothing to do with the resurrection, so we're on the right track. 

The kids were extremely excited for the egg hunt, even though we haven't bought any new eggs in like three years and they were old, scratched up, and mismatched. The Easter baskets were even older and the handles fell off of two of them before we even started. The eggs were filled with colorful marshmallows, Skittles, and Reese's. It was the thrill of the chase/hunt more than anything that they were after. That and a rare pre-lunch sugar rush.

We staggered the release of the children--Amber started her hunt one minute before Rose, and Rose got a 30 second head start to Jay. When you only have 33 eggs for 3 kids, they go fast! Amber managed to gather about seven eggs (with much pointing and encouraging on our part) before the big kids stormed the yard and cleaned up the rest of the eggs in less than 5 minutes flat. Once Amber discovered the colorful marshmallows in her eggs, she stopped looking for more eggs altogether. She sat on the front porch, munching on her marshmallows contentedly while Jay and Rose dashed around squealing and scooping up the remaining eggs.

Jeff and I noted that the Easter egg hunt lasted less than half the time of the church Easter videos we watched online. We counted it as a win.

We used Rose's birthday curlers in wet hair overnight with tight, ultra-fluffy results. She was giddy when I took the curlers out, and she felt beautiful all day in her flowy yellow flowery fairy dress and bouncy curls. Oh, to be six years old again.

Waiting for the rest of the eggs to be hidden.

My girls and their curls. I love them. Photo bomb credit: Jay.

THE HUNT BEGINS!

This little beauty with her long lashes, red lips, and light sprinkling of freckles. Rose White--"the fairest of them all."

Jay was pleased to find the last egg of the hunt.

He is in the prime of his boyhood right now, and we love him.

I attempted some post-hunt springy kids photos with Jay in his pajamas and the girls in their fancy dresses, with mixed results.

Those blonde curly heads together on the couch. Love.

Before church it was time for the traditional family Easter Sunday picture debacle. That gorgeous pink tree was full of bees, and the kids were wary and kept ducking and moving at the wrong moment.

We propped the camera on a stack of bricks and got one family picture in front of our tree, and had a friend snap one on my phone at church as a backup.

The timer was too long for the kids to stand and look, so we resorted to family selfies with my cell phone. These crack me up!

Jeff and I had both run Lincoln Grade the day before (3 miles straight uphill, 3 miles straight back down) and we both had painfully sore quads. Squatting down to take this series of family selfies was agony, and it started to show in our grimaces by the end--haha.

I ended up cropping the crooked stacked-brick-timer photo, and it turned out just fine.

Happy Easter!