Apr 13, 2009

A beautiful day

We had such a beautiful Easter Sunday yesterday. We started off the day at church, where we participated in our annual tradition of decorating the Living Cross. Each year we take cut flowers with us, and at the end of the service we put them on the cross, which has been covered with chicken wire for this purpose. The cross is transformed from this:


To this:



... in a matter of minutes. Here, the boys are adding our flowers to the cross. I love this tradition and look forward to it every year!





After church we headed over to my Uncle Dick's house for an Egg Hunt, our second for the season. The kids get VERY excited about the eggs he hides, because he puts money in some of them.

Jake slept while we were eating lunch before The Hunt, so when he woke up, we brought him outside -- high chair and all -- so that he could eat while they big kids hunted.


My cousin Richard was the Grand Marshal of the Egg Hunt, so the big kids gathered on the porch, and they waited for the "Go" signal. Once they got it, they were off!



Jake was also VERY EXCITED when The Hunt began:


They'd done a really good job of hiding the eggs, so The Hunt lasted about 15 minutes. Here are Nathaniel and Nicholas hunting with their cousins Taylor and Anna:






When we returned home in the late afternoon, it was time for the boys to open their gifts from us. (I learned years ago that our boys do better waiting until the other parts of the day are over to open their baskets/presents rather than do it early in the morning.)

This year they each got a
Star Wars: The Clone Wars plate/bowl/cup set, and Jake got a stackable bug set, too.




Nick got an
Alvin and the Chipmunks T-shirt, a Clone Wars T-shirt, a Clone Wars sticker book, and three new sets of underwear (Power Rangers, Batman and Clone Wars).


Nathaniel got a
Transformers T-shirt, a Clone Wars T-shirt, and three new sets of underwear (Spider-Man, Clone Wars and Iron Man).



I know, I know. Recession? WHAT RECESSION? But I'm actually very proud of myself because I spent less than $15 on their baskets outside of the underwear, and they really needed the underwear. I only presented them with their Easter baskets because it was sort of a light year.

But it really WAS a beautiful day, marred only by the fact that Jonah is back in the hospital. Please keep him, Matt and Patrice in your prayers. Thank you!

5 comments:

RLR said...

I really like the idea of keeping the baskets until later in the day. It's sure hard to get out the door to church when the kids want to enjoy all of their goodies. As for the underwear - I would've done the same thing. My daughter got "Once Upon a Potty" in hers this year!

Sarah T. said...

Nathaniel's already six. Enjoy this time when you can talk about his cartoon underwear on your blog without it ruining his life.

Melanie said...

I have to agree with SET - I cringed a little bit on Nathaniel's behalf when I read about his underwear gift. Thanks alot, mom.

But, on another note, kudos to you for finding a way to remove the previous day's dye stains from their hands! Unless you worked some magic in photoshop, they appear dye-free! :-)

Katherine @ Grass Stains said...

Ryan Leigh, I found that there were arguments about wanting to take small things from the Easter baskets to church with us, where they would inevitably get lost or argued over, and often the Basket Goodies overshadowed the Reason for the Day. Doing them later means that they have something to look forward to and -- bonus! -- I can also use it to keep them in line earlier in the day. AND I don't think that's using Jesus as a bribe, because our Easter baskets are separate from our celebration of Jesus, as far as I'm concerned.

Katherine @ Grass Stains said...

I know, I know. I'm sure it's my last year of being able to talk about his underwear in public.

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