Easter 2011

When did this kid get so tall and skinny?

It was a cold, rainy Easter weekend in Northwest Arkansas, but we celebrated our risen Christ just as though the sun had been shining.  I love the renewal of Easter and the pageantry of everyone getting dressed up for the celebration of the day.  Of course, Easter is not all about dresses and new shoes and eggs, but the “fanciness” of the day makes it stand out all that much more.  It makes us take notice.  It makes it not just another Sunday…because it is so far from being mundane. 

Our church has a community Easter egg hunt on the Saturday before Easter.  This year, it was held inside because the eggs (and the kids) would’ve floated if we had taken them outside.  Even though we celebrate the sacred parts of Easter most, the church still has an Easter Bunny available for pictures.  We don’t really do the whole Easter Bunny story at our house (or Santa either, for that matter), but I don’t have a problem at all with the kids having their picture taken with him.  I wasn’t sure how Nola would do, but she was fully intrigued by him. 

After we had our turn to take a picture, she kept going back over and just standing in front of him.  Sometimes she would get tickled about it and just laugh out loud. 

The kids ate cupcakes and cookies and all sorts of sweet stuff, then they separated them into age groups and let them pick up eggs in the hallways.  That worked out great for the kids because they didn’t have to worry about the little ones and big ones getting in each others’ way. But – it caused a bit of a problem for this mom who had one in one hallway and another in a whole different hallway!  I ended up going with Nola, since it was her first egg “hunt”.  My friend Sheila took pictures of Caleb, but I don’t have them yet to share.  Here’s Nola’s adventure:

When it was over, we took our baskets and headed home…

When we got home, Caleb and I dyed some eggs and made our bunny cake that turned out really ugly, but it tasted really good.

Sunday morning, we got the kids dressed in their Easter clothes and went to church.  We had a nice service and then went to lunch.  I tried so hard to get a good picture of them, but it was quite difficult.  Here’s the best I could do…

After lunch we came home to rest and then gave the kids their Easter baskets.  We scaled down the baskets this year.  Each of them got a movie and a snack, some bubbles and the candy that had been given to them by their grandparents.  Caleb’s favorite thing was his Super Mario fruit snacks.  Nola liked the bubbles best.  I filled the extra space in the baskets with Easter stuffed animals from years past.