Happy Easter 2011

We had a wonderful day today celebrating the Risen King!  We started the day off with a family Easter basket (I think we'll continue the 1 basket tradition...it was nice being able to get some "good" stuff for the kids and not worry with candy and didn't break the bank).  After the basket full of goodies we moved on to a favorite breakfast; no pancakes this morning since Daddy is usually the pancake maker in the house and he's in Alaska for the time being; instead bacon and "cheesy eggs."  After breakfast and clean up we dyed our eggs.   I skipped the prepackaged dyes this year, mostly because I really thought we had some tucked in our holiday box, but it must have been given away before the move and I didn't want to fight a crowd to get one.  I found easy instructions for simply using food coloring and it worked well for the dye and was super easy indeed. 
After eggs, we went to Kristin's to celebrate with them and their family who was visiting from out of town.  What a treat to be invited to special meals to celebrate with friends - though who am I kidding...they aren't just friends, definitely part of our family even if no one else knows it.  The boys had lots of fun playing and causing mischief (some of which I think Mike will have to fix when he gets home...oh boys...at least Josh apologized and I think realized he'd been a bit too rough!)
Kristin made a delicious lunch for us and I enjoyed visiting so much!  After lunch Kristin and I went to a little grassy patch in their neighborhood to hide eggs for the kids to find while Kristin's in-laws took the 4 big boys on a walk.  We probably weren't outside more than 30 minutes, but by the time everyone dug into their candy it was melted!  Guess next year we'll have to do our hunt first thing in the morning or stick with starbursts and skittles or such instead of chocolate!  It was a wonderful day though, we came home and had naps, I managed to edit all the pictures during naps and while the kids all 3 ran around the backyard playing.  Dinner was simple but good and then it was time for a little Wii action with the new game. 
My absolute favorite part of the day though was driving to Kristin's house.  We had talked about church last night and the story and lesson the boys learned, talked about why we celebrate Easter and what a wonderful gift that Jesus gave us on Easter.  We talked on and off all morning about that.  On the way to Kristin's I was asking the boys if they remembered and both of them could tell me; Josh was so excited when he said "On Easter Jesus was alive!" and Noah echoed his excitement and that Jesus had to die for our sins.  I tell you - nothing that could be in a basket was as good as that; knowing that they are learning the most important truths!
But of course, I took lots of pictures and had to share a few (I figured out how to do clipped masks in Elements though...which thrilled me as now I can do my own templates for sharing multiple pictures and it makes it so, so, so easy!)