A Blessed Birthday and Easter Weekend

Easter Weekend was a busy one! It started off with my birthday on Good Friday, was filled with our favorite Easter traditions, and ended with a beautiful Easter Sunday. I know I'm in the minority, but Easter is one of my favorite holidays!

We packed a LOT into 3 days! I had a mini birthday celebration, we dyed Easter Eggs, we had two backyard egg hunts, we had a mini Saturday evening Easter dinner with two friends, and we celebrated Easter with my parents and my sister's family. Other than not being able to go to church in person, the weekend was perfect!

I planned on posting the day after Easter, but apparently when I turned another year older, my body decided to break! I pulled a muscle in my lower back for the first time ever, and I literally could not move without feeling excruciating pain for two days, and I ended up in bed for hours. Thankfully, it went away quickly, and to celebrate, I got my first vaccine, and felt yucky for about 24 hours. But, hey, let's get back to my birthday and Easter!

The 10 Valuable Lessons I Learned From Easter in Quarantine

Easter Sunday was definitely a lot different this year! Although we missed hugging our family, getting back to the basics in quarantine actually turned out to be a positive experience. I love Easter, but I wasn't expecting much this year. Surprisingly, though, it turned out to be one of my favorite Easters, and it will certainly be a memorable one!

I think the biggest difference this year was TIME. We had time to enjoy our family traditions, time to enjoy the holiday, and time to focus on the important things. Despite not spending the morning at church, I feel like this Easter was the most meaningful Easter we've ever had as a family.

Easter activities might have been canceled, but Easter was still very much here! Easter is about celebrating the fact that He is Risen, and that can be done anywhere. When we took away our usual Easter hustle and chaos, we were able to focus on what we were truly celebrating, and spend time together as a family!

Easter 2018: No Words, Just Pictures

Easter 2018...sometimes it's best to just skip the words, and recap the moments with pictures!

Happy Easter!

My family had a wonderful Easter Sunday! Easter is tied with Christmas for my favorite holiday. Everything just feels so new and perfect on this day! 

We kicked off the fun last night.  After eating an easy dinner and baking some Easter cookies, we dyed our Easter eggs!

Liam isn't quite ready for the dyeing process just yet, so he enjoyed some Easter Egg snacks!

I think it was our quickest Easter Egg Dyeing experience to date!  Each of the kids dyed a dozen eggs and they were done in less than 10 minutes!

After baths and showers, the girls planted some jelly beans. It's a fun tradition for our family!

 

I know each family does baskets differently. In our family, the kids sit out their empty baskets, then the Easter Bunny fills them up and hides them. In the morning, the kids have to search the house for their baskets. Grant and I both grew up with the same tradition, so we carried it on with our kids!

The kids sat out their baskets, then headed to bed. While they slept, the "Easter Bunny" arrived!

Dylan's basket was hidden in a closet, Lexie's basket was hidden on the attic steps, Lily's basket was hidden in the bathtub, and Liam's basket was hidden in his teepee!

And sure enough, those jelly beans sprouted, and the Easter Bunny left behind a clue that he was there!

Easter morning is ALWAYS rushed, but so much fun. The kids barely have enough time to search for baskets and check out what's inside of them before church, but somehow, the kids manage to squeeze it in!

This morning, the kids found their baskets quickly, and immediately dug in! Liam was pretty impressed!

The Easter Bunny did a good job this year! ;)

Thankfully, church is just a 1/2 mile away!  We rushed out the door, and made it to our seats just a few minutes before Easter Sunday service began!

The kids are always so well-behaved in church, but I was a bit concerned about how Liam was going to behave.  The past few days, he has been on the go CONSTANTLY and he gets frustrated when he's restrained.

He was an angel!  He clapped, he sang, he participated in the kids service, and he started to drift off during the last 5 minutes.  I just might have bribed him with some marshmallows, but it worked! And he promptly perked up for some donuts after the service!

After church, we stopped by Grant's Nannie's house to visit with some relatives who were in town for Easter.  It was a short visit, but it was nice to see everyone!

Next, we stopped at Grant's other grandma's house.  We ate an early dinner and visited with all the cousins!

Our last stop was at my parent's house for an egg hunt and dinner!

Liam isn't quite interested in egg hunts yet.  He's a one egg and done kind of kid!  Dylan found all of his eggs (each kid is assigned a color) in about a minute and ran off.  Lexie and Lily were willing participants, thankfully!

Dinner was delicious! The older kids ate outside since it was so warm while Liam entertained the rest of us!

It was a long and busy day, so we decided to head home shortly after dinner.  I always like to include "real life" pictures in my posts, because let's face it, life is never perfect!  This is the result of not enough sleep, an hour and a half at church, two dinners, and three places to visit: One exhausted family!

Despite those tired faces, it was a fantastic Easter Sunday full of love, family, and fun!  

Do you celebrate Easter?  What are your favorite Easter traditions? 

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Egg Hunts and Easter Parties

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! We had an amazing Easter weekend, followed by a much more relaxing day at home with the entire family. I'm still recovering from our whirlwind weekend!

In a few hours, my husband will return to work, the big kids will return to school, and Liam has therapy.  Back to normal!

On Saturday, we were on the go from the moment we woke up until the moment we got home at 12:15 AM!

First on our agenda was an egg hunt at a local park.  We went the past few years with friends, but this year I was on my own with all 4 kids. I strapped Liam in the Ergo, and hoped for the best!

Because of their age gap, Dylan and Lexie were at a separate field from Lily.  I had to stay with Lily, so I didn't get to see Dylan and Lexie.  Lily's egg hunt was just as insane as it was last year.  The 5 and under crowd is fierce.  Lily ran for a few eggs, but after nearly getting knocked down by some older kids and some over-eager parents (I wish I was kidding), she decided those few eggs were plenty!



We were able to see the very end of Dylan and Lexie's egg hunt and met them at the edge of the field. They got tons of eggs, mainly because there were less kids in the older group!



The entire thing was over in 1 minute!




The kids got their goody bags, and got in line to see the bunny.



Other than not being able to take many pictures, it was painless. 15 minutes after arriving, we were back in our car!

Our next stop was at Target for a birthday gift for Dylan's friend, followed by a quick trip to Kohl's for an Easter dress for me.  Once home, we only had a few minutes to gather our things for the rest of our day, then we hopped back in the car.

Dylan went to a birthday party at a carpet skate park, while the rest of us went to my friend Steph's house.  She was hosting our annual Easter Dinner and Egg Hunt for friends, and generously offered to let us come early since we were so close.  Grant left to pick Dylan up, just as the rest of our friends started to arrive.

We had a delicious Easter dinner, followed by an egg hunt at dusk for little kids, and a glow in the dark egg hunt at night for the older kids! Liam was the only kid who didn't enjoy it.  He was cold and tired, and not too thrilled about the idea!










Liam cheered up as soon as we went back inside! Of course, he was plotting how to hit his big sister in the head with a princess wand.  He succeeded.



We spent the rest of the evening having fun with our friends.  They even celebrated my birthday with a delicious red velvet cake.  It was such a special night with our "framily" whom we love dearly!




We usually don't have our Easter party with our friends the day before Easter, but due to busy schedules and other events, we didn't have much of a choice. It was nice, though. It felt like we celebrated Easter the entire weekend!

It was a bummer having to say goodbye so early (before midnight is early for us!), but we had another busy day ahead of us.  All the kids fell asleep on the way home, and Grant and I talked about how good the day was despite being so busy. We arrived home just after midnight, and thanks to our sleeping kids, bedtime was a breeze!

I headed to bed with a full heart and so much excitement for Easter Sunday!

Kicking Off Easter Weekend

Easter is one of my favorite holidays!  I love everything about it...the egg hunts, dyeing Easter eggs, wearing our Easter best, Easter service at church, Easter dinner, and spending time with family and friends.

We had a wonderful Easter this year!  All the fun began on Saturday afternoon.  We met our friends at our local park for an egg hunt.  The weather was warm and sunny, so it was the perfect day for it!

It was a great event for the kids, but all the age groups had their hunts at the same time.  Unfortunately, our kids were at 3 different fields.  I stayed with Lily, Grant stayed with Lexie and a family friend's daughter, and Dylan stayed with a classmate and his mom.  I quickly ran from field to field and snapped a picture of each child before the egg hunts began.





Lily's egg hunt was intense.  It was for ages 1-5, and the older kids snagged all the eggs.  It was over within 45 seconds. Lily only got 6 eggs, but she didn't seem to mind!




We walked over to Lexie's field, and watched as she hunted for eggs. There were only 10 kids in her age group and only 5 in Dylan's age group, so their baskets were filled!




After they finished, they all sat down to look in their eggs.  This was a candy free egg hunt, which I loved!  They got tiny action figures and animals, stickers, tattoos, and even ear buds!!! Lexie happily shared some of her loot with Lily and Charlie.



The kids went down to the pavilion to get their goody bags.  They were filled with crackers, juice bags, and some candy, so they sat down for a quick snack.





We don't usually see the Easter Bunny, but he was greeting the kids, so a sleeping Liam got to meet him.  Lily got to meet him for the first time, too.  She was very intrigued!




The younger kids ran off to play, but Dylan declared that he was just too old for the playground (WHAT?!?), so we took Liam to a shady spot to play.





Liam even joined the older kids on the playground!  I had to get creative...







The girls played, the boys hiked through the woods with the dads, and the moms talked.  We ended up staying for about an hour after the egg hunt ended.  We attempted a group picture before we all left.  I love our group of kids so much!





After the egg hunt, we visited with Grant's family for a few hours.  Some of his relatives were in town, and his cousin and his family stopped by, too.  It was a nice afternoon!

We dropped Grant, Dylan, and Lily off at home, and Lexie, Liam, and I went shopping and picked up dinner. That evening, our friends came over, and we dyed eggs together.



The boys quickly abandoned the girls.  Audrey, Lexie, and Lily dyed 4 dozen eggs on their own. We love Audrey so much!  She is a beautiful young girl and is so good with the little kids!






Liam watched the entire process and made sure everything ran smoothly.




Our newest little "bunny" made the egg dyeing cleanup tolerable!







We had a great day with our family and friends!

Dylan, Lexie, Lily, and Liam's baskets were placed on the table, and they headed to bed, excited for the arrival of Easter!