Easter Festivities

I would like to say that this past Easter Sunday was a relaxing, calm day, full of lots of reflection on what the day really means...unfortunately, if I said that, I'd be lying, and the guilt would plague me. So, this is how Easter Sunday really breaks down for us:
Our church puts on a wonderful pancake breakfast from 8-10a.m., at a local fire house, for our church, and the community (around 100 people were served breakfast). At 11 we have service at the church.
So, Easter morning Dave has to be at the fire house by 6a.m. to start cooking with the other men from our church. I am on my own to get the kids up, dressed for church, get a shower and get myself ready, feed Joel, do the girls hair and be out the door around 8:30a.m. to go have breakfast. Okay, so I woke up at 5a.m, and could not sleep any longer. I got up and had a little time to myself before the kids got up. When the girls got up I excitedly reminded them of the pancake breakfast, and Alayna announced loudly, "I WANT OATMEAL!" Okay, okay, I made her a quick bowl of oatmeal, since she's used to eating when she gets up, and I didn't want her to be starving and cranky. I fed Joel his cereal, got us all ready, and had really good intentions to take the kids picture in their Easter clothes. I forgot about the picture, and put the kids coats on to leave. When I remembered about taking a picture I had no desire to take their coats back off and try to make them smile, rebundle them, and leave. So I took my camera to the breakfast with me. Here are the results of my efforts:


You'll just have to trust me that the girls looked adorable in their dresses and white sweaters. It was too cold for Joel to wear the short sleeve shirt I bought him (35 degrees outside), so he wore a winter outfit.

This was my last attempt at a picture, and then I just gave up.


After Sunday morning service we quickly fed the kids a light lunch, changed our clothes, and piled into the van to go to Dave's brothers house for the afternoon. We celebrated their baby boys 1st birthday, and had Easter dinner with Dave's whole family.

Dave's mom & sister filled 160 Easter eggs and let the 6 younger grandkids have an egg hunt. 160 eggs, divided by 6 kids...well, I never was good at math, but we did have a LOT of eggs to sort through when we got home.



Alayna, Julie & their cousin, Lily.




You'll notice I have no pictures of the kids getting their baskets from Dave & me. We did give them baskets, and they thought they were great...as for pictures, well, you'll just have to take my word for it. They got baskets.

I truly am grateful for what Easter really means, and in the hecticness I tried to keep my mind focused on what Easter is all about. However, I'm reminded that sometimes in life, when your kids are little, things are not always as calm as you'd like them to be.