A Happy Easter

 

Now that I've got my blog working again...

 

We had a really nice Easter this year.  My sister in law Amanda sent us some really cool ideas to do for Easter, but in the end we just ran out of time to do them between all their homework and trying to get our house cleaned up for Easter.  We did spend the week talking to the girls about why we truly celebrate Easter, but we also prepared them for E. Aster Bunnymund's visit (Gwen is reading the Rise of the Guardians series...this is the Easter Bunny's name in the books).  Gwen and Grace really seemed to understand why we really celebrate Easter, especially Gwen, who has a very sweet testimony of the Savior and His sacrifices for us, and was pleased to share that in her talk that she gave in Primary on Easter Sunday.

 

The girls spent a good deal of Saturday though riding bikes up and down our street with three boys who live in our neighborhood.  Two of them are in Gracie's kindergarten class, and the other is one of the boys older brother.  We walk home from school 3 or 4 times a week with the older brother and Gracie's classmate, and they have become good friends.  They had a lot of fun together, and I was really pleased to see that everyone, including the boys, were making sure that they included Georgia as well.

 

After playing outside for a while we came in, had dinner and baths, then decorated eggs.  Rob and I were so excited to see how Genesis would react to dying eggs, and just to celebrate her first Easter with her.

 

Genni loved looking at and touching the eggs.  She loved them so much that she started shrieking in displeasure when I helped her put them into the mugs to dye them.

Gwen had fun dying eggs...

...as did Gracie and Georgia.  The girls all had tons of fun putting an egg in and leaving it while we watched Scooby Doo cartoons and I put curlers in their hair.

 

The girls were so excited the next morning and had so much fun looking for their Easter baskets, which Bunnymund hid, as well as all the eggs he had hid that we had dyed the night before.  Their baskets had the normal goodies of chocolate bunnies, plastic eggs filled with MandM's and jellybeans, and peeps, but also had some beef jerky, pistachios, stickers, a notebook and pen, and a bouncy ball.  The girls were thrilled (and snuck as much candy as possible before mom and dad noticed).

 

 

 

Since Genesis can't have chocolate yet, or any type of candy for that matter, Bunnymund brought her some things that she'll be starting to eat in the next few months like Gerber's puffs, yogurt melts, fruit bars, and even a new outfit and toy.  She immediately gravitated to the new toy and began chewing and sucking on it.

Gracie's curls didn't come out like I had planned.  Her hair had just gotten too long for the curlers we had.  We still tried the ones we had though and figured we'd see how it turned out the next morning.  It didn't.  I had seen a post on one of the craft blogs I follow a week or two before Easter with instructions on how to do a 5 strand puffy braid, so I decided to try it on Gracie.  Once I got the hang of doing it, it was pretty simple and easy.  I think it would have turned out a bit better if her hair wasn't so crazy due to being semi-curly when I did it.  Next time I hope to do it while her hair is wet so it turns out smoother and I can get a better picture of it.

 

 We waited until after church to take pictures, because we just didn't have time before with Rob and I trying to get things ready for dinner, get ourselves ready for church, and get the kids ready.  Genni was a bit grumpy after church, and didn't want to sit up on her own, so we had to prop her up and get her sisters involved to get her to smile and once she started smiling she turned back into our happy baby and let us get a bunch of cute pictures of her.  The girls all did really well and let us take some nice photos of them.

 We decided to try and take some photos of the girls out on the swing set, but once we realized that none of them could hold on to their seat and hold Genni at the same time we scrapped that idea and took a couple of the three older girls, then went inside to take pictures of all 4 of them together.

 

We had fun getting the sillies out, and then took some nice photos.

 My 4 beautiful girls!!

I am so blessed that I have a wonderful husband who loves me and helps me so much, 4 healthy and happy girls, and a very loving Heavenly Father and Savior.  I am so grateful for all I have!!