A Blessed Easter

I do love Easter, don't you?   I love the spring, the joy, the holiness.

I love teaching our children about the specialness of this holiday, the most important day of the year to us Christians.  Of course, we celebrate it with lots of fun things like dresses and eggs and candy and food (oh, lots and lots of food), but the real reason is never far from my mind.

Our Easter holiday was simply sweet.

We did the Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday at church this year, which was Judah's first.  Complete confusion was written all over his face until big sister, Gi-Gi, stepped in to "assist" him, she being too old to participate now.

(Jack was trying to share w/ his BFF.)

Let's think about the whole concept of an Easter Egg Hunt, shall we?  We try to teach our children to share, be givers and not greedy.  THEN, we run around with them, cheering them on trying to get as many eggs as possible.  Try not to knock the babies down, but get that last egg over in the bushes before anyone else sees it, for heaven's sake!!  And let's not forget about the candy that keeps the dentists in business.  I cannot even imagine how much booty my children walked away from this holiday with.

Thankfully, we ration it out and it should last a couple of months around here.

Saturday night was reserved for food prep and girlie bee-yoo-tee-fi-ca-shun.

Ya-Ya got her first egg rinse.  Please notice our model's joyful face as she experiences her first big-girl beautification process.  Not that anything could make this girl more beautiful in her mama's eyes.

Sunday morning dawned bright and early, but look!  What joy!  New Bibles (for two of the Littles), new cds and story books, candy (yes, more) and precious little treats that came all the way from South Carolina and a very sweet friend out there.  My. kids. were. stoked.

We made it to church on time (Wow!  An Easter miracle itself!), which was amazing considering Paco was singing and had to be there early.  Thank goodness for two cars and my right hand gal, Maggie.

Don't they look beautiful?  I'm so proud of all of them.  Everyone coordinated, hair turned out right and they were on their best behavior.

Of course, we had to rush home because a whole crew was heading over to our house.  Here are some of them:

We had (ahem):  ham, roast chicken, scalloped potatoes, strawberry salad, fruit salad, greenbean casserole, daffodillies, deviled eggs, fresh lemonade, made-from-scratch blackberry cobbler and carrot cake.  Recipes coming soon on Smoochin' in the Kitchen.

(thank goodness for yoga pants, my friends.  so not kidding.)

After dinner, we managed to roll ourselves out the back door to have a sweet little Easter egg hunt at our house with my little nephew.  When we were done, he just kept signing "More!  More!" in sign language.  He knows how to have a good time!

And then we all crashed.  Paco and I had worked hard and I was ready for those yoga pants and the couch.  So we all piled on the couch and watched The Ten Commandments with Charleton Heston.

It was a pretty glorious day!

How did you spend your Easter?  Do you have any fun or especially meaningful traditions in your family?