Our Easter 2015

Our Easter last weekend was pretty simple, yet memorable.  It was the first Easter in FOREVER that was actually spent at our own home.  We normally spend Easter celebrating with lots of family away from our home, but this Easter it was just spent with our own little family.  I didn't miss the traveling at all, but we did miss celebrating with lots of other family.  And although we missed celebrating with lots of family, we also had a lot of fun just being home.

We started the resurrection day off with a celebration at church on Sunday morning.  It was an awesome sermon delivered by our church's founding Pastor, Matt Carter.  The title of the sermon is "saving vs intellectual belief".  ("If Christ did not rise from the dead, then why worry about anything he said.  But if Christ did rise from the dead, then you must accept everything he said." -Tim Keller)  If interested, you can watch it by clicking here.

Drew snapped a photo of the kids and I after church.  Abbey has that face because she says she is "scared to take a picture."  She is certainly our little actress.  Luke is pretty excited about the balloon.

Then, we came home and made brunch together as a family.  Eggs were included and we talked about how true Easter eggs are empty, which symbolize that we have new life in Jesus as he left the tomb empty.  We also even made a "He is Risen" cake and enjoyed that later on Easter night.

Now, I probably should post a disclaimer before I proceed about the Easter bunny:  he/she doesn't come to our house.  I know some people who read this probably think that is just about the worst thing ever that we don't pretend that a big furry Easter bunny doesn't come bouncing into our home bringing Easter baskets full of tons of surprises.   But, doesn't that sound just a little bit creepy?  I certainly don't judge though as each family has their own personal ways to celebrate.   I know that I remember being told that the Easter bunny delivered my Easter basket full of goodies on Easter Sunday when I was little.  I also remember thinking that it was so far fetched though.  However, Drew and I did hide the kids' Easter baskets on Sunday morning, and they had to search for it to find a small little surprise in each of their baskets.  The kids know the Easter surprises were from us, in celebration of the resurrection of our Savior.  We used those same Easter baskets for our little Easter egg hunt outside after brunch.       

Luke got a stomp rocket in his basket.  Both he and Abbey have had hours of fun with that toy!

It had rained a little earlier that morning, so we used a tarp to cover the wet grass.  Here the rocket is ready to launch.

The kids and Drew played with the rockets while I hid the eggs in the front yard.  Then, it was hunting time.  Drew posted a few videos to youtube.  If you are interested in the videos, you can head over to his youtube channel and check them out.  Just click here. 

Here is precious Abbey putting her first egg in her basket.

The paces and strategies that Luke and Abbey used on their hunts were vastly different.  It was fun to watch.  If you know Luke and Abbey you probably can guess how they hunted.  Luke was very quick and was all over the place.  Whereas, Abbey moved more slowly and more methodically, planning out her moves efficiently. 

In the end, Luke found just slightly more eggs than she found.

spotted an egg.....literally running out of his pants.  This kid eats so much yet his pants never stay up. 

more careful egg-hunting

although she moved a lot slower than Luke, she really was finding a lot.  Perhaps she needs a larger basket next year.

Luke found the most special egg though.  This was the empty egg.  It symbolized the empty tomb Jesus left when He arose. So, we had a special prize attached with that egg, since that was the best gift we could ever receive--a resurrected Savior!

Abbey was celebrating something-ha!

Counting eggs

sweet sibling love

Once Easter was over....we were back to all of our "moving in" projects on Monday.  The list is so long, but we are also chomping away at it a little bit each day.  We really have gotten a lot done and are so thankful that the Lord has helped us all along the way so that it hasn't been too overwhelming.

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter celebrating our risen Savior, as we did!