A Happy Easter

We started the Easter weekend off with some not-so-Easter activities! I hosted Bunco night on Friday and Darrin took the kids camping. They had a blast, despite the rain, and enjoyed spending time with two other dads and their kids. Darrin forgot to take a camera, but take my word for it- they were a mess. I scrubbed Preston and soaked him in a blueberry-scented tub, but he still smells of campfire!
Saturday blew by as we tried to clean up from the camping and work on Hannah's school project. (We just love these parent projects!) We did manage to end the day with our annual lesson on the events of the first Easter and the "empty tomb" hunt.

Haylee read us the true Easter story and we sang children's songs of Christ's death and resurrection. Then Darrin and I hid eggs filled with fish and honeycomb (goldfish crackers and Honeycomb cereal) for the kids to find. We leave one of the eggs empty to represent the empty tomb. Whoever finds this one is lucky because they get to be the first to bear their testimony of the atonement. Hannah won the honor this year. It's so great to see our kids' knowledge and understanding of key principles develop and grow!

As the kids came downstairs this morning, they found that the Easter Bunny had left a trail of jelly beans again. He's so messy! You can watch the video below, but here's a summary: They had some great stuff in their color-coordinated baskets, like chocolate bunnies, Peeps, cotton candy tubs and bath stuff! They'd never had the Peeps before. Haylee was the only one that really liked them, so Darrin and I helped finish those off! Preston was EXTREMELY excited about his Wolverine Action Figures since lots of "Wolverine" stuff is on his birthday wish list (thanks to the mega movie promotion going on)! Hannah's basket contained the newly-released "Bolt" DVD and Haylee received her first iTunes gift card.

I was off to church at 8:00 a.m. to rehearse the choir on the 3 songs we performed today. All went well. It was a nice sacrament service and the first under our new bishopbric. (We were grateful that Darrin kept his calling as High Priest Group 2nd Assistant since the leader was moved into the bishopbric. He's only had this assignment since January and has really enjoyed this area of service.)

Here we are after church on a gorgeous NC spring day. We've had more rainy days than sunny ones over the last month, so I was grateful to get some outside pictures.

We hope everyone had a Happy Easter and took the opportunity to reflect upon what our Savior's sacrifice & resurrection means in your life! It gives us great hope and peace.