I'm not going to lie, Easter was a little bit chaotic this year.
We got going on so much other stuff leading up to the big day that we ended up scrambling to squeeze all the finishing touches in at the last minute.
Which is crazy because THIS was the year I started early.
I read "A Christ-Centered Easter" in it's entirety.
I had plans. Big ones.
Maybe that's why I was grouchy when it came to the actual day. I planned too big and too fancy. I volunteered to teach a lesson at church which took a long time to prepare (and ended up kinda flopping), and Dave had to be one of the speakers which always causes a little stress (he was amazing), and we waited 'til the last minute to do our favorite egg coloring stuff.
I'm not saying we didn't have a great Easter. I mean, how can Easter not be great...especially when you look back at pictures like this:
I just wish I would have slowed down and soaked in the moments a little bit more.
I love how excited our kids get about painting eggs.
The girls were enamored by my butterfly:
This one's kinda blurry but we tried the rubber-band-before-you-dip-in-egg-dye trick:
We liked it.
Lu mostly painted her arms and dress.
But she was in hog-heaven getting free-reign of the paint.
Grace created some serious polka-dot masterpieces.
Max was there...Dave too...just weren't too into the creative painting stuff. Max was more into that shrink-wrap stuff.
In lieu of the Easter Story Cookies this year we opted for the Resurrection Rolls everyone told me about in this post. 
(Thanks for the tip...they lived up to their delicious expectations.)
We made sugar cookies for the Young Women:
And the Easter Bunny did his traditional string from the end of the kids' beds leading to their baskets. This is how it looked when we went to bed:
We snapped a few pictures before we left for our cute nephew's missionary farewell at 8:00 (it was a beautiful service).
The Easter egg hunt waited 'til after church:
I love that my brother lives close-by.
We were there too...just in the background...
We met up with all the cousins for Easter dinner that evening.
This is how Lu spent much of the weekend:
...waiting for an older sibling to hide an egg or two and then she was in Heaven trying to find them.
It was a beautiful Easter. I think with the family scripture study of all the events surrounding Easter that we did leading up to Easter, our Family Home Evening lesson and all the symbolism we talked about throughout the week the kids really caught the real meaning of Easter and had fun too.
But I don't know that we need to cram in quite so much other fluff. Next year we'll re-evaluate. But for now, I love looking at these pictures of another beautiful year celebrating one of the most important things in history. I'm so grateful for a holiday to reflect on the fact that Jesus Christ lives. And that He loves us so much.Labels: Easter
I just wish I would have slowed down and soaked in the moments a little bit more.
I love how excited our kids get about painting eggs.
The girls were enamored by my butterfly:
This one's kinda blurry but we tried the rubber-band-before-you-dip-in-egg-dye trick:
We liked it.
Grace created some serious polka-dot masterpieces.
Max was there...Dave too...just weren't too into the creative painting stuff. Max was more into that shrink-wrap stuff.
In lieu of the Easter Story Cookies this year we opted for the Resurrection Rolls everyone told me about in this post. 
(Thanks for the tip...they lived up to their delicious expectations.)
And the Easter Bunny did his traditional string from the end of the kids' beds leading to their baskets. This is how it looked when we went to bed:
We snapped a few pictures before we left for our cute nephew's missionary farewell at 8:00 (it was a beautiful service).
I love that my brother lives close-by.
We were there too...just in the background...
This is how Lu spent much of the weekend:
...waiting for an older sibling to hide an egg or two and then she was in Heaven trying to find them.