Easter 2012

I was daydreaming the other day about the time of my life that was B.C.

Before Children.

I was remembering fondly how Mark and I used to celebrate Easter by making a special picnic, complete with ham and deviled eggs, and then go for a drive up into the hills somewhere. We would find a beautiful spot to spread a blanket and then eat and talk and lazily dream about life. 

Fast forward to today. A.C. 

After Children.

Just like with my post-pregnancy body - things will never be the same. 

Easter for our family is first and foremost about the rising of our Saviour - Jesus Christ.

While we attend church every Sunday, Easter Sunday is always special. 

After the service, the family gathers for an Easter meal which is always fabulous and then, my favorite part, we hide the Easter eggs. 

Now, I have something to confess. 

I have never, ever colored Easter eggs with my children. It's not that I am adverse to the idea. It's just never worked into my schedule (or Mark's for that matter). 

My children are still completely ignorant of this typical Easter event because luckily, none of their cousins partake in this annual ritual either - Phew!

That being said, we all still stuff the plastic eggs full of goodies and then, because we live in Eastern Oregon where the weather is usually bad for Easter, we hide the eggs in the sanctuary of the church. Sounds bad I know, but we asked the Pastor (who is practically my brother really) and he said it was ok.

This year, since the sun shone, we decided to change it up a bit and actually hide the eggs outside. Crazy, right?

Also, since the girls did all the food work, the boys got the job of hiding the eggs. In typical boy fashion, they each tried to outdo the other in clever ways and places to hide them. I laughed just watching their silly antics - seriously. I know Dawn, Johanna and I usually put in half the effort those boys did. 

Then it was time to line the kids up (we had a few neighborhood kids catch a whiff of candy so they ran home and snatched up their candy bags as well). 

We always torture the kids by making them wait and wait and giving them false countdowns until we actually say Go! (it's more fun that way). 

Once they started, I just sat back and watched. Mark was working so I had to make sure I got some pictures so he could share in some of the fun (albeit second hand). 

Once every last egg had been found (and there were some hard ones!), the kids quickly got to work on the important job -taking the candy out of the eggs and then trading. This part lasted longer than the actual hunt. 

The eggs that had toys in them were worth a lot of candy so they were very excited when they got something good to trade.

After everything was cleaned up and the kids were winding down from sugar highs, we decided to pump them back up with some baby chick fever. 

Dawn is getting set up to do chickens this year and so they have 7 little chicks at their house that were just begging to be played with. The kids were quick to oblige!

Caleb with his Auntie Hannah. 

There were two little black ones in the bunch. 

All these little babies got Owen excited about us having chickens one day (hopefully next spring!). He kept oohing and aahing over them. I think the feeling was mutual. They loved to climb into his lap and make a cozy spot. Plus, not a single one pooped on him! That's definitely a sign of love!

Who doesn't love baby chickens I ask you?

Even ones that get placed on the back of your neck?