Easter 2014

We had a busy but fantastic Easter weekend! 

 I got to sing on the Worship Team for Easter and we sang a total of 8 services. We were tired but, we had such a fabulous group of talented musicians and it was so fun. It was a totally successful weekend for our church also because we had nearly 8,000 people in attendance and 117 baptisms! 

 It was an amazing weekend to be a part of. 

 I love worshipping with these sweet women of Jesus.

 

I made sure to dye some eggs one night with these silly kids.
 

And we had an egg-celent lunch one day at school.


Because of all the church singing, the easter bunny came to our house on Saturday. 

 Oh, the easter bunny. 

 I am just not a huge fan of you. 

 We have been really focusing so much this year on understanding the resurrection. Thanks to these incredible set of Resurrection Eggs.... 

  For days and days leading up to Easter we talked in detail about Christ's death, burial and resurrection.
 The kids hunted for an egg each morning and Kinley asked detailed questions that I wanted to take serious time to answer correctly. She can tell you what every single one of those little trinkets mean in relation to what Jesus did for us on the cross.

 So, I just truly cannot try to infiltrate that learning about the unseen and intangible with the easter bunny.
 I struggled this year.
 I mean, you really have no meaning at all.
 I can get into decorating with an egg because of the empty tomb and all that but, I just can't seem to be excited to celebrate you at all.
 I want the fun and the surprise in the morning, and the giving.
 But, I really cannot even bring myself to admit that you exist to my children.
 It just seems wrong.
 But alas, I let you come anyway and just breezed right past the issue of your existence as the kids ransacked through their baskets and ate tons of candy.
 

One of our favorite traditions is to find the empty egg, which represents the empty tomb, in the easter basket.
 They search through the basket and think finding that empty egg is such a prize.
 

Then we had a fun family breakfast! Thanks 99 cent store and my printer for all the Easter décor!
 I will be visiting you again for future holidays.


After Saturday night church we had Easter dinner at the Harrisons and ate this fabulous Bunny cake that Gram and Kinley made earlier in the day.

 Sunday, after church, we all met over at Aunt Jan's for our traditional easter brunch. Kinley and Ty hunted way too many eggs.
We can't wait for the babies to get bigger and hunt with us!

But we did get a few great-grandkid pics with Rilee and Taylor. My favorite thing was when Matt called in to Skype with us.
We are missing him so much while he is in Switzerland. He was so much fun to talk to because he had just come back from spending Easter weekend in the Holy Land!
 I mean, who can say they have ever done that?
He just hopped on a plane and went to Jerusalem and walked where Jesus walked on Easter weekend.
 Amazing.
 He saw the wailing wall, and where Jesus fed the 5,000, and where Jesus was born and even got baptized in the Jordan river!
 Amazing.

We were all so excited he called and just crowded around the phone to listen to him talk.
 
And we made sure he made the group picture too.
 I love Ty looking at Momma Gay holding the phone trying to see uncle Matt-Matt.
 
It was such a fun day celebrating the resurrection with family.

Happy Easter!

Other March / April happenings

We spent an evening in Dallas spending some time with Uncle Matt-Matt before he left for Switzerland. He is over in Lucerne for 3 months for work and we miss him like crazy! 

 We can't wait to see him when he gets back. 

 

It was wacky day at school one day and these kids loved totally and completely dressing themselves.  Their favorite thing was the hair spray paint. I thought it was so funny that even though Kinley did not match at all, she still had a consistent theme of polka dots going...from bows to shoes, every single item had polka dots. 

 

Our usual routine on nice days is enjoying some brother/sister time in the backyard.

   

And Ty has mastered the art of a good selfie. 

Ben and I are LOVING being able to watch a live church service when we can't make it to church. We watched on our phone in the car on the way back from the lakehouse on his birthday weekend. And I am so excited to not have to miss church while we are driving to Disney. 

 We can just worship and listen from the car! So fun. 

 

 Ty and I got to spend some fun Friday time together. 

 One day we went to Southlake town center to shop for birthdays and spent some time at the fountain splashing the water and throwing coins in and had a lunch date at Corner Bakery.

   

 Another day we went to Chickfila and Parr park to play around before picking up sister from school.

   

 I also got to spend some fun one on one time with Kinley getting snow cones one day.

   

 We had a couple really fun birthday parties one weekend. Grady turned 3 with the cutest Racecar party.

   

Guiliana also turned 3 and had a egg hunt party. This was our only egg hunt with friends this year and it was so much fun for everyone.

   

Sweet birthday girl.

 

Ryan Nordell dressed up as the Easter Bunny and it was so, so fun. I think the parents loved this as much as the kids. We could not stop laughing. 

 It was hilarious.

   

For playgroup we went to the Children's Museum to see the Wizard of Oz exhibit.

   

Somewhere UNDER the rainbow... 

 

And we can't visit the museum without sitting in the dinosaur footprint. 

 

We also spontaneously stopped by a field of bluebonnets in downtown Grapevine to run around a bit.

   

I didn't get the best brother sister pic...but, I did get these gems that led to the instagram announcement of Baby #3. 

Happy Spring!