Backyard Fun

Yay for Spring! Yay for baseball season. We are having so much fun in our backyard these days =)

Adam's coworker gave us a hand-me-down play house. The girls love it!

Yup - Caroline can still fit!

Cutie Pie!

Easter Pictures

Get ready some super cuteness! My dad took these pictures of the girls before Easter in their Easter duds. I just love them! One thing that I forgot to include in my Easter post is that Lucy just loved her Easter hat. She wore it all 4 hours of church on Easter Sunday - refused to take it off all during nursery!

Easter

Easter - The celebration of my risen Lord. We had a fantastic Sunday. The girls woke up to Easter baskets. They each got a puzzle, a night gown and a few pieces of candy. 

Side story: A few weeks before Easter, I had the girls with me Easter dress shopping. We were browsing through Kohls when I heard Caroline behind me, "Oh Mommy! How about this one? Isn't it the most gorgeous dress?" I turned to see her twirling amongst the night gowns and running her hand on the silky material. I explained that those were beautiful, but they were night gowns and I decided right then that I had to get the girls night gowns for Easter. 

It took me a while to get her to stop dancing, but here is Caroline in her Easter night gown:

Lucy was pretty excited too.

We got dressed in our Sunday best and then headed out the door for church.

On Easter Sunday, our church asked members to park at a separate, nearby location to allow for parking for guests. They chartered buses to bring us to church. So here we are riding the bus.

The service was a wonderful - just a great celebration. Afterwards we headed to our friends' house to eat lunch and hunt for more eggs.

This year has been so special - just really sharing more and more of the Easter story with the girls. Lucy has had a hard time getting past Jesus being a baby. She only likes to read the stories about Baby Jesus in her little Bible. And Caroline asked so many tough questions this year. Questions like: "Why did the soldiers do that to Jesus?" How do I tell her that it wasn't really the soldiers who did it? It was our sin - my sin and hers. We fumbled through our answers and prayed that God would do the rest - pursue their little hearts.

Easter Festivities

Holidays are just so much fun with kids. The anticipation and the build up, the teaching of new traditions, etc. Easter was so much fun this year. Shortly after Valentines Day, I got the Easter stuff down out of the attic. Lo and behold we had 11 Easter baskets!! Eleven - that the girls had collected in their combined 4 Easters. The girls loved it! They used them all as purses and played all kinds of games with them for the next month!

We also got down the Resurrection Eggs. If you don't know about resurrection eggs, they are a fun way to explain the Easter Story. Each egg contains a symbol from Easter week. Also, Nana gave the girls a new book this year Lily's Easter Party. The book talks about the resurrection eggs and gives real life application to what is inside each egg. Caroline LOVED the book. She poured over the book and memorized the order of the eggs and what was in each one. We began opening one Resurrection Egg a day about 2 weeks before Easter so that we would open the last one on Easter morning. And every morning, Caroline knew which egg was next and what was going to be in it (even though I wouldn't let her confirm it until the right morning).

The Thursday before Easter, we dyed our Easter Eggs. Caroline wrote the first letter of all of our names on 4 different eggs. 

The Friday before Easter, we went to the upstate to visit all the grandparents. First stop was Grandma and Grandpa's. Grandpa took some beautiful pictures of the girls that will be in another post. All of the cousins came over shortly after that.

Easter basket treats

Egg Hunt!

Next we headed to Nana and Papa's to celebrate Aunt Alli's birthday. The girls got Easter treats there as well.

Reading her new book with Papa.

Getting ready for Easter was so much fun. I honestly coud not believe how much Caroline learned this year about Jesus. She can now say "Garden of Gethsemane" better than I can! And oh the questions! The questions are so heavy for a 3 year old: Did it hurt when Jesus died on the cross? 

I have so much less time to prepare my heart for Easter these days - to reflect and be thankful - to read and reread the story, but teaching my children and answering these heavy questions brought my heart to it's knees every time!