Easter 2011

What a wonderful, fantastic day here filled with church, friends, love and good food :)

Easter baskets all ready

The Family

My girls

Destiny- 14 (let's talk later about how hard it is to find an appropriate dress for a 14 year old)

Abby-10 (With her fabulous new bangs)

Maddie-7 (Such a sweet little face)

Miss L (She is wearing the Easter dress my girls both wore several years ago. We have taught her for almost 2 years in Sunday School and absolutely adore her)

Miss L's family. They are such awesome people.

The "H" boys. Their mom is one of my closest friends here and a phenomenal cook. We spent Easter Sunday afternoon with them and had a fabulous time.

My early riser was excited to see what was in her basket

My bedhead kid and her nerds

Too cool for Easter basket pictures

I thought I would compare pics of my two little girls. The first pic is from their first Easter together in 2004 and the second from today. Can't believe how quickly they are growing.

Matching dresses. Ohio Easter 2004

Almost the same size, Georgia, Easter 2011

He is risen

Celebrating today the true gift that God gave us, his Son.

Wondering how I can be loved so much by God even when I fail so often.

Trying to live the 3rd day life, the life of resurrection and promise, not focusing on the failures of the past or the things that overwhelm me on a daily basis but living in the fullness of His promises.

Striving to teach my girls the very same truths, Christ is risen and in that they will find hope and freedom.

I spent the morning humming one of my very favorite Easter hymns. So simple, but the truth contained profound.

1. Low in the grave He lay,
   Jesus my Savior,
   Waiting the coming day,
   Jesus my Lord!
   • Refrain:
     Up from the grave He arose,
     With a mighty triumph o’er His foes,
     He arose a Victor from the dark domain,
     And He lives forever, with His saints to reign.
     He arose! He arose!
     Hallelujah! Christ arose!
2. Vainly they watch His bed,
   Jesus my Savior;
   Vainly they seal the dead,
   Jesus my Lord!
3. Death cannot keep its Prey,
   Jesus my Savior;
   He tore the bars away,
   Jesus my Lord!

Hallelujah Christ Arose

Happy Easter

Easter was a bit different for us this year.   I didn't realize that it was Easter and scheduled our trip away to Gatlinburg and an indoor waterpark.  "No problem," thought I,  "I will just find a church for us to go to."  Not being in church on Easter is really unimaginable to me and the only time that I can remember not going was when Abby was 4 and had the chicken pox.   I decided that maybe a sunrise service would be nice and so I found one.   One that begin at 6:30 am on the top of a mountain that would require that we take a scenic tramlift to the top.   Did I mention the mountain was thirty minutes from where we were staying?   Everything seemed like a great idea until 4:45 this morning when we were supposed to get up to go.  Two of our children had coughed non-stop all night and they hadn't fallen asleep until 10:30 the night before.   We ended up staying in bed and missed not only the sunrise but the service as well.  I felt incredibly guilty about not going and even told God so but here is the neat thing about God, he loves us even when we don't get to church (not that I am saying that it doesn't matter if we go or not-that's a whole other discussion).   

We ended up gathering the girls up in the sunlight streaming through the window and taking turns reading the Easter story and asking questions and pondering what it felt like to be a bystander that first Easter so long ago.  I think the girls got just as much out of it as they would have had we been dressed in our Easter finest sitting in church or wrapped in our coats sitting on a mountain top.   They have all mentioned at various times today and tonight during there prayers that Jesus is risen.  Christ died on the Cross for each one of us, to take on our sins because He loved us that much and then He rose again.  My absolute favorite song to sing on Easter and I did sing it (albeit a little off key) says,

Low in the grave He lay, Jesus my Saviour

Waiting for the coming day, Jesus my Lord

Up from the grave He arose, with a mighty triumph o'er his foes

He arose the  victor from the dark domain and he lives forever with his saints to reign

He arose, He arose, Hallelujah Christ Arose!!!    

And that is what it is all about.  So no great shots of the girls in their Easter dresses.  Just a picture of the beautiful mountains we looked over as we contemplated what Christ has done for us.   

We didn't quite forget some traditions though and the girls got their baskets when they got back home tonight.  The girls don't believe in the Easter bunny.  We have never told them that there isn't one, we just never said much about him.  One day Abby and Maddie said, "We know you do the baskets" and that ended the need to hide and try to get things out before they wake up and in this case we were able to leave the baskets here and not take them with us.  They enjoyed them when they got home.   

Easter Baskets

New shiny Crocs from their baskets (in all their favorite colors)

Busy Weekend

It was a busy day today with trying to prepare everything for Easter and also accomplish some laundry while I was at it. We did take some time out today to color eggs (that will all get used in Bud's mom's delicious deviled egg recipe) and go to the Easter Egg hunt at our church before I taught in the second grade classroom for our Saturday night Easter service. I am tired just typing it out. I am headed to bed now but will be up bright and early to start the preparations for our Easter meal that we are having with friends tomorrow afternoon and to get everyone ready for church so that we can be on time. I hope you all have a wonderful Easter.

P.S. The two additional children in the Easter Egg pics are the twins that we watch on Saturday for a good friend. We haven't been crazy enough to add any additional children to the family!!