Our Easter 2015

     Happy Easter!

 It has been a nice weekend,  Easter is one of my favorite holidays,  celebrating Jesus being ALIVE.  Celebrating hope and springtime.  It is a good time to rest, sit back and look at what you have with thankfulness.  Oh, and I love Easter colors, they make for great scrapbook pictures:)  Yesterday I went to the salon with my grandma and got my hair done, low-lights, high-lights and trimmed, it was only the second time I had my hair professionally done like that and I love it!  

         Last night I had fun getting the kids Easter baskets ready for them.  They each got a few little things that they wanted like a book, hair accessories, small lego set, etc. and then some candy.  There are always issues with dividing up their candy, whose-whose and all that so now I divide it up ahead of time and use their initial to label their containers, so there's no question who it belongs to.

   Each kid got 3 containers in their basket.  (I also do it because I like to keep food in containers, and they have to leave it on the kitchen table after they get the baskets)  

I always like getting a picture of all the kids Easter baskets lined up together.  The baskets are special to me, my step-grandma made them all for each of their 1st Easters, except for the little one on the end that is for the babies we lost.  It was kind of like with the stockings at Christmas time, I couldn't stand the thought of having everyones lined up with their names on it and not also include the babies.

Inside the caddy is a little "care bear" that Benson found in his room a month or two ago and said "mommy can I give this to Jamie and Trey?"  He knows that he can't really "give" it to them, but I think he understands that things like that help represent them and that he hopes they can see that he is thinking of them.  It was very sweet.  Then this past week Vince got upset because he wanted to put something in their basket from him so he asked to me to make a little blanket for them. I crocheted it on good Friday and he put in their "basket" yesterday.  The other little bear is one we picked out so that there would be two bears in it for 2 babies. 

    I got up around 7a.m. to make coffee cake for breakfast, http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/double-streusel-coffee-cake The kids were already up and starting to get ready for church.  Since everyone was up and ready early we ended up doing Easter baskets before church.

 

 

I had originally thought we wouldn't have time do them first because a lot of times I don't get up and start getting ready for church until around 8, that extra hour made a big difference!  We also needed to be at church early because we were teaching in the 4 year old class, Benson was so happy that we were his teachers for Easter, and that we were bringing cookies for the class.  (and WOW what a rowdy class!  He has a great teacher that is in that class most of the time, she must have a lot of patience! Overall it went well though) And we left church with a huge bag of Hershey's Chocolate eggs (plus a gift card to Grater's ice cream) because Vince won a guessing game from last Sunday's church Easter family night!

     After church the kids just had fun hanging around the house finding Easter eggs I hid, playing with their new things and eating candy.  

I made lasagna for dinner and then we went on a family walk since it was just so nice outside.  We walked for well over an hour "exploring" the neighborhood and old golf course trail, even Cambree walked the whole time and didn't whine about her legs getting tired, I was impressed!  

 
I had moments of "awe" just watching all the kids having fun together and realizing just how big they are getting.  There are definitely times that I miss when they were younger but tonight I had a such an appreciation for the stage they are all at right now.