Easter Festivities!

Easter is one of my favorite times of year as we celebrate our risen Lord!! Although we celebrate this every day, I love the traditions our family has for this time of year: dying eggs, egg hunt with church family, Good Friday service at my parent's church, resurrection buns - yummy!, meals with family, Sunday morning service, resurrection eggs (we added this one this year), matching foo-foo dresses, egg hunt at Neil's parents with the cousins. There is nothing like the time we have with one another.

So here are A LOT of pictures to help us remember our celebration this year! I LOVE the age the girls are at right now. Just soaking up the bible, asking questions, giggling, sharing - I pray I never forget this time in our lives.

First thing we did was the annual Northside Egg Hunt! Always a great time!Here is Eden in her Easter dress looking sweet =) She's really started posing lately!

Our Claire Bear
Abbey and Claire - what a blessing it is to have Abbey and Claire growing up in church together!

Abbey, Leyna and Claire - this is one of my favorite pics of the day! My prayer for our girls is to have strong, Christian friends so they can encourage one another. Claire is blessed with these girlfriends at such a young age!
Neil and I with our little egg huntress =) Once she got over the roly poly that was in her bucket (she didn't want to crush him with her eggs) she was off to find her loot!

Grandma and Grandpa came to celebrate with us!

Neil and Eden looking cute

Before Good Friday service, we had Billy over for dinner and we dyed eggs. This was something that Billy and I loved doing as kids so it was especially fun to have him there while doing it with the girls! The eggs got put into almost every cup so we had some very colorful eggs this year =)
Love this picture

Neil's Uncle John came into town for our dinner and egg hunt celebration with Neil's family. We hadn't seen him in awhile and Claire had a great time hanging out with him!
Cousin Egg Hunt!
Kyle and Justin getting eggs from the tree!
Claire checking out her candy and other goodies!
Maw Maw came too and Eden was in heaven sitting next to her at dinner!
Justin brought his lizard, Sarah and the girls LOVED holding her and letting her crawl all over them!! We might be a reptile family which I don't mind - we had an iguana, turtle and ball python when we were growing up. Here is a great pic of Justin holding her =)


Before bed we made resurrection buns so we could have them for breakfast! Super important to have the kids make them with me - we roll up marshmallows in crescent rolls, seal them up (like the tomb), sprinkle with sugar/cinnamon, bake and then when you take a bite on Easter morning, it's empty - just like the tomb!!

Empty resurrection buns Easter morning!! HE IS RISEN!!
Claire with her basket after church! So proud of her chocolate bunny and cross necklace from mom and dad - this basket was given to my mom for her first Easter so it's extra special!
Eden was in candy heaven!!
What a glorious day to celebrate!! Praying that our little guy will be home for next Easter!!