Easter wrap-up

I'm going to document our family's Easter weekend events in this post. I had not one but two debates with my family yesterday about how we celebrated Easter last year and the blog was able to prove me right both times. Sweet justice!

Good Friday: 

The kids had school but John had the day off! That means we had a date! We went to lunch, did our "Easter Bunny" shopping, and shopped for men's black dress socks. Doesn't get more exciting than that.

I did this again this year. Just a reminder of Jesus' sacrifice for ME, for you, for all of us. I got the idea from Wendy a couple of years ago.

We also went to our church's Good Friday service, and after the kids went to bed, the Easter Bunny visited. Our Easter bunny comes on Friday night instead of Saturday. Here's why.

Good Saturday:

I don't know if it's really called Good Saturday or not, but it seems like a good descriptor for a Saturday.

The kids woke up to a (shared) basket of candy and Coldstone gift cards. Last year our Easter bunny outdid himself and brought movie tickets but I think this year he knew that John and Meredith didn't want to sit through Hop or Diary of a Wimpy Kid II. We're indulgent parents, we just prefer not to spend upwards of $50 for a movie we'd rather see on dvd in two months, so thank you for notching it back down this year, Mr. Bunny!

My rule on Saturday is that kids can eat candy all day long (or until it's gone) and so that's what they did. It was mostly gone by 11am. Sarah went to an Easter egg hunt that she and her middle-school friends organized for themselves and there were tears when she got home and realized her brother and sister ate all the Starburst jelly beans. Those things are tasty! 

I ended the day talking to one of my dearest friends. She called to tell me that another dear friend's father had passed away earlier that day. My heart aches for my friend and her family...loss is never a slight thing...but that was a timely reminder of what Easter Sunday is all about...death is not the end of the story...

Easter Sunday:

Church, of course, was first up.

 My friend, Paula, took this picture of us after the service. I sent my mom some pics of the kids and she asked why John and I weren't in them. It's because this is the only one we got so thank you, Paula!

I looked at some Easter pictures that friends posted on Facebook last night and wanted to cry at all the lush, green foliage in the backgrounds. There's a reason all of our Easter photos were taken inside. We woke up to snow yesterday and it was 32 degrees when we left for church. It's typical, but it's disheartening when it happens year after year after year. The picture below makes me laugh because the girls were NOT happy when I told them they needed to grab their coats before church. 

We came home from church and had lunch: ham, potato casserole, roasted asparagus, roasted brussel sprouts, and rolls (Sister Schuberts!) with cherry pie and Blue Bell for dessert. (I include this information for my own future personal reference should my family insist that we ate at Chilis for Easter dinner!)

We finally got around to dyeing eggs on Easter afternoon but I didn't take one single picture. They were pretty though!

We ended the evening the way we end most Sunday evenings, watching AFV and The Amazing Race.

Easter is the one holiday that makes me more homesick than all the others. I think it's a collective longing for spring and flowers and sunshine and family and old traditions. Easter in Colorado makes me SAD. I try to make it special and fun for us, but I never fully feel like my heart is in things like it is on Thanksgiving or Christmas. I'm still feeling tired from riding the emotional roller coaster of the last couple of weeks with my breast lump/biopsy saga too. It's fair to say that I wasn't the happiest chick to be around yesterday. Still, the meaning of the day wasn't lost on me and I feel like overall it was celebratory.

The kids are out of school today. I'm not complaining about a day off but I much prefer it when our day off is Friday. When our school week starts on Tuesday, I feel like I'm off kilter for remainder of the week. This one is already super busy, so I'm going to have to be ultra-organized and on top of things! Happy Monday, peeps. Strangely, the word "peeps" seems especially fitting today.