Easter

Jesus is Risen! This is why we celebrate Easter! Looking back on our day it is easy to see how Satan so easily tries to steal our joy and Jesus' fame. A day to celebrate, and we did, but we also did our fare share of complaining. To make it short, we had the prettiest dresses, shoes, bows, Canon's perfectly new white outfit, and 3 hours to get ourselves all together for church. I also made a rice dish for lunch. I started the day by announcing, "Jesus is Risen! and explaining Jesus' life and death and resurrection. And then it quickly turned into planning how to get them all fed, dressed, Canon a nap, Canon to eat again, get myself ready, the girls to not tear or stain their outfits before they got to church. It seemed like a much more crazy Sunday morning than usual...and Phillip even came home to help for 15 minutes so that I myself could get in the shower. Once we actually got to church Atley fell out of the stroller, and then wanted to sit where Canon was, and nothing was going as usual. If I am calm and relaxed, usually it really makes an impact on them and they themselves are calm and don't get too uptight. But not today. Church was wonderful, lunch with our family at the Brookes was wonderful, but somewhere along the way in my heart I lost the JOY of Easter! I'm already planning and thinking how next year can be different and how I need to spend some time actually PRAYING about the day instead of just planning out outfits and food to eat. It is all a learning process, but in my heart I want it ALL to be about the Lord and HIS glory and not about my children's cuteness and getting to church "all put together".

This was my first attempt at getting a picture of Atley in her dress. They really loved their dresses and didn't mind staying in them all day long. They love their shoes, and even loved their bracelets. (After we put them on, took them off, and put them on like 3x)

Avery in her dress smiling up at me. She has been a little sick lately with a cold. Canon finally got it yesterday, and as we were putting Atley to bed tonight I noticed she is definetly getting it too. What goes around comes around :)

The girls got to hunt for Easter Eggs and it was SO sweet to watch them. Phillip's mom had filled eggs full of organic treats for the girl which I really appreciated (thank you!) and Phillip and his brother's hid them in the Brooks' front yard. It was all for them and at first they didn't really know what to do, so after some prompting and showing, they started to get into it. They went everywhere together and would give each other eggs when there were two to get. They are very good at sharing and I was proud of the way they took care of each other.

Atley filling up her basket!

Avery had the greatest smile and laugh as she would see an egg and start running toward it.

sharing sharing

After their "nap" they were sorting through their goodies, all excited about what they got.
"Nap" refer to climbing out of their pack and plays twice and being found in Joe and Bab's bathtub playing with excersise balls! TWICE! They had gotten spanked and cried, and then instigated each other to climb out again! I'm thinking pack and play days are over for them!

Our first Easter with 3 kids!

Matt and Lauren, Josh and Julie, Papa and Mimi, and us :)

Aunt Lauren and Aunt Julie with sweet Canon

My sweet hubby and I

The cutest little boy on earth! He had little white Robeez on with yellow ducks, but Avery had already pulled them off at this point and tried them on all of her baby dolls.

HAPPY EASTER
JESUS IS RISEN
Praise you Lord for your Grace on me!