Easter

Happy (late) Easter, everyone! We had a really great Easter weekend this year, filled with some of our favorite activities (church, a birthday party, and time with friends), some of Ben's favorite activities (hunting eggs and eating candy), and even a few new things that will hopefully become family Easter traditions (dyeing eggs adn resurrection cookies).

This year, we went to church on Friday night instead of Saturday, because Avery's birthday party was going to be Saturday afternoon. Here we are after church, all dressed up.

Grace showing off her Easter dress & shoes!
Thanks, Sweetie!

 After church, we had some dinner, put Grace to bed, and then dyed some Easter eggs with Ben. This is the first time we've done this with him and he really enjoyed it. He liked watching the little color tablets fizz and dissolve, and he thought it was really cool to see the eggs change color. We set them aside to dry so that we could turn them into monsters the next day. :)

On Saturday morning, we drove all the way down to Culebra for Ben's T-Ball practice, only to find the field empty. I made a call to the coach who confirmed that, oh yeah, he had to work this morning, so practice is cancelled. Grrrr. Ok, so 30 minutes of stop and go traffic on 1604 later and we were back home. Oh well, more time to finish decorating our monster Easter eggs. Ben loved this part even more... picking out stickers and gluing on the hair and pipe cleaners. They turned out really cute!

 

Eggs done, lunch eaten, naps taken. Now, it was party time! We went next door to Aaron & Liz's for Avery's 2nd birthday party. Ben had a great time playing with Tanner, Avery, Emily, Alana, Cole & Elise. They did the jump-jump in the backyard, ate some dinner, and then we had a big Easter egg hunt in the front yard. Ben proudly showed off his basket that had, in his words, "MILLIONS of eggs!"

Afterthe party, we put Grace to bed (again - she misses all the fun) and Ben and I set out to make resurrection cookies. I found a recipe here. I don't like pecans, so we crushed up Heath bar instead. Ben was really into helping with each ingredient and it was a great teaching tool for the Easter story. We did the first couple steps and read the scripture verses in between. By the time we got to the sugar, Ben was asking, "Well, what does the Bible have to say about that?!"

I'd never donethem before, so I was really hoping that they'd turn out so that the empty tomb illustration would be realized. Well, low and behold, we took them out of the oven the next morning and Voila! They were tasty, too ~ I think this will definitely be a project that we add to our Easter traditions.

After Ben checked on (and tasted) his cookies... it was on to baskets. Here are my "Pottery Barn Knock-offs". (Those baskets are so cute, but no way am I spending $40+ dollars on an Easter basket. These were cheap-o finds from Garden Ridge and I sewed the liners myself.) The loot was a group effort from Sweetie, Grammy & Granddad, PawPaw & Dee Dee, and of course, Mr. Bunny. The kids loved everything - thanks everyone!

Grace's expression is priceless!