Another Beautiful Easter!

Jesus Christ is risen!!

Through His death and resurrection we are forgiven and have received the gift of eternal life!

Nothing I do can take that gift of pure love away from me and for this reason I consider the celebration of Easter to be the most special day of the year.

Like most years, we spent almost every waking moment of Easter Sunday preparing for and celebrating Jesus' resurrection.

I took LOTS of pics this weekend....170 by my camera's count...so bear with me.

And though I would love to share every single one, I don't think you want to stare at pictures all day. =)

So we'll start with Saturday evening.

We had to prepare the Easter eggs for our egg hunt at home on Sunday.

Terry and I both loved doing this as children and so it's something we will do with our kids for as long as they'll take part.

Jude did a lot more "helping" this year by putting eggs in and even drawing on his own eggs.

Both of the kids had a lot of fun with the egg dying.

Here we are at the beginning...lots of clean white eggs and every Fiesta mug we have!

You know they dye faster if you stare at them, right? =)

Jude LOVES pumpkins...well, drawings of them anyway. So we made sure to create a "pumpkin egg" for him. When he found it during the egg hunt, he held it in his hand the whole time until his hand was completely orange!

Our colorful creations!

Terry had fun drawing on some of the eggs

Cecilia made some of the girliest eggs I've ever seen!

Jude is pointing out the egg with his name on it

So after a short rest (I was up at 5 a.m. to get ready for church), the kids got up to see what the Easter bunny brought them. I'd say they did pretty well!

Then we were off to church for Easter breakfast before the service. My parents and my grandmother (90 years and counting!) go to our church as well and we enjoyed the morning with them.

My mom and dad with the kids

After breakfast, it was time for the kids to hunt eggs....except that it had rained earlier in the morning, so they had to settle for just picking up eggs off the floor. This happened last year too. Hope next year is dry!

The church service was as beautiful as ever, but I didn't get to take any pics in the church this year.

After church we all went to eat lunch at Olive Garden.

During lunch Cecilia received her gift from from all of us...a necklace and cross from James Avery. She really loved it.

Pics of the family at lunch...yes, I was there...but always behind the camera!

After lunch we headed home for a little rest and then Terry's dad came over to see the kids while they hunted eggs.

For the fist 18 years of my life I attended a predominately Hispanic church and always enjoyed the traditions that the culture brought to Christian celebrations. One of my favorite memories of Easter at my old church was making and breaking confetti eggs.

Everyone at church got into the fun and reveled in the wonderful celebration of the day.

Well....my current church is NOT predominately Hispanic. Let's just say that most members are a bit more "reserved". A few years back, my mom and I thought it would be great fun to bring some confetti eggs to church for old times sake. Hmmm...the confetti didn't go off so well with the gringos. Haha! But really, it's just a culture difference. German Lutherans aren't known for their flamboyance and spontaneity now are they?

So this year I kept the confettiness at home and busted a few on the family.

And yes...they got me too.

We all had lots of fun this Easter Sunday and enjoyed the wonderful time with our families and each other.

Happy Easter!

Hope yours was as beautiful as ours.
(My wish may be a day late, but Jesus' great gift is an eternal one and should be cherished EVERY day of the year!)