Easter, 2012

This year for Easter, I wanted to try a Pinterest inspired way to dye Easter Eggs...Kool-Aid eggs! I'd heard great things about it, especially how great it smelled, so I thought I'd give it a try. We chose flavors we knew would give us vibrant Easter egg colors. 

As far as dyeing eggs goes, this was probably the most stressful year for me just because Eli wanted to do it all by himself without any assistance. He did allow us to help him a couple of times, but for the most part he did it all. I do have to say though that he was very careful about what he was doing.

Thanks to the eggs we dyed at Avery's birthday party, we only had to dye a dozen eggs ourselves. Here we are with our completed eggs. The Kool-Aid colors worked really well!

After we dyed Easter eggs, we sat down at the table, and Eli and I did his Resurrection Eggs. I found these last year after Easter at Lifeway and they were 90% off! They had two packs left, so I got one and my parents got the other one. I'd used them before for children's activities at church, so I knew how awesome they were. I was so excited to be able to share the Easter story with Eli this way. He sat and listened so intently during each egg. I love that we'll be able to do this year after year!

Early then next morning, Eli woke up to see what the Easter Bunny had left for him this year. I'm glad the Easter Bunny got my message and left some summer pajamas for my little man. He's just growing so very fast these days!

The Easter Bunny also left him some candy, some sugar free gum, a book about Easter, and a new Toy Story TAG book.

Eli was very excited about the Toy Story TAG book. He immediately left to get Buzz so they could read it together before church.

We got dressed for church and I managed to snap one picture of Eli before we left. He looks so grown up here!

We got to church a little early, so I had time to take some more pictures.

The Hargon girls walked up right about then, so they jumped in for a couple of pictures, too. Hannah wasn't really into taking pictures with Eli at first, so Marlie jumped in and took one with him. Eli loves both of these girls so very much!

My friend, Diane, is just precious, and I love this picture of her with her girls.

I do the art portion of Eli's Sunday School class, so I was able to take a couple of pictures of him in Sunday School. I decided to go easy on the craft on Easter Sunday because I had no idea how many kids might show up. They kids did seem to enjoy their Easter coloring page though :)

These are all the kids in the 2 and 3 year old Sunday School class. This was their serious picture.

This is what they did when I told them to do a silly face. Haha! This made me laugh :)

After church, Hannah was in a much better mood and let me take some pictures of her with Marlie and then some with Eli. I'm so glad, too, because they all turned out so cute!

We went to Josh's grandmother's house for lunch, but before we ate, I had to take some more pictures of our little family.

Eli and Zue-Zue

Our family-Easter 2012

Daddy and Eli

Eli and Mommy

Not everybody was willing to stop what they were doing a take a picture for me. Addison was NOT in the mood at all. She quickly let me know what she thought of me and my picture taking :)

After bribing the kids to eat our Easter lunch, Peyton, Eli and Addi were ready to find some Easter eggs. They waited patiently for the adults to hide them, and then they took off in search of the eggs.

After finding all the eggs, they sat down to look at and to consume their candy. I knew that they'd go crazy for candy, so I only filled about 10 eggs with candy. They rest of them were empty. Mamaw came to the rescue though and brought each of the kids some chocolate Easter bunnies, which they promptly gobbled up!

Chocolate candy coma

Addi was starting to warm up to the camera, but she still wouldn't look straight at me and smile. Lisa was able to get her to smile by telling her not to smile...whatever works!

While I was having my Addi photo shoot, Eli and Peyton were throwing balls on top of Papaw's roof and letting them roll down. Occasionally, a ball would get caught on some pine straw, so Reggie would hoist Peyton up there to get the ball down. Eli watched Peyton get up there a couple of times and when a ball got stuck again, he asked if he could get it. Josh held him up so he could climb up there and Eli loved getting it down. I snapped a picture because I couldn't believe that Eli wasn't the least bit scared! 

When it came time to get down, Reggie told Peyton to jump to him. Peyton was a little scared so he sat down first and then jumped. I wish I had a picture of what happened when Eli did this, but I was so scared I didn't have time to snap anything. Eli decided he didn't want to sit down and then jump. He walked up to the edge and jumped right down into Reggie's arms. I think my heart stopped! This is the kid who said he wasn't going to jump off the diving board and yet he can jump off a house?! Oh dear, his teenage years are going to be an adventure for me!

Peyton and Eli went from jumping off houses to climbing trees next. Those boys had so much fun just being boys together.

What a busy, fun-filled, wonderful day celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and spending time with family! I'm so thankful that I serve a risen Savior. He has blessed my life in more ways than I can count. I am so grateful for all that he's done for us! Happy Easter!