Easter 2013

I walked around for almost the entire month of March thinking Easter was on March 24th. So last Thursday when I realized Easter wasn't happening in 2 days I relaxed big time and as a result our normal Easter traditions were thrown together hastily. We went to St. Louis to go to the temple on Saturday just like we did last year. As always it was a perfect start to our Easter weekend. While we were there I realized that I still hadn't gotten Easter dresses for the girls. Thank you Costco for carrying the Hannah Anderson line for so very cheap... so throwing dresses into a cart with strawberries and meat I felt like I was going to pull things off after all. Then on the way home I ran into the commissary throwing a few bags of candy in my cart for a hunt and looked around at the slim pickings for a basket and decided to skip baskets this year. We kept it simple and it was wonderful. The kids and I watched Finding Faith in Chris before church while David did his hometeaching. I fast forwarded to all the miracles and the kids were very into it. On holidays it makes me thinking 1 o'clock church isn't so bad at all. We even took pictures out front and weren't late.

 

This picture makes me melt with happiness. I love these 4 little ones. Sometimes I can't believe they're all my offspring.

We couldn't figure out where to set the timer to get a group shot so David and I used Lucy to prove that we're still part of the fam.

I love her little ears. She doesn't have much hair so the ears compensate giving her serious spunk.

This is my one picture of the Easter hunt. Remember how I said I was underprepared for the day? Well, had a grill full of London Broil (enough to feed 20) when our propane ran out. So I took the steaks down the street to Ben and Emily's only to realize I was not skilled enough to light the grill with a paper towel like Ben and he wasn't home yet. So I unhooked their tank and brought it home. I'm so glad to live next to family who believe in the law of consecration and don't think twice about me walking away with their stuff. We color coded the egg hunt this year. It was a success.

The kids shoved as much candy in their mouths as they could in ten minutes before we took it all away and got the house ready for dinner.

We had a big pot luck and lots of friends over. It was amazing. The Lopez kids played with all the little kids outside and we actually had 9 adults sitting around the table for an entire hour by ourselves with almost no interruption. It was awesome.

We didn't dye eggs again this year because I am a slacker and don't even like hard boiled eggs but one tradition that lived on was the bunny cake. I couldn't get any of my kids to stop playing to come over for a picture so I was glad I caught James swiping a jelly bean. As I looked around the table on Sunday at the mix of friends some without their wives and children and the Lopez family with a deployed Dad and thought there is nowhere else I'd rather be. This is an incredible area to be apart of. It was definitely a Happy Easter!