Easter 2010

Easter was wonderful this year.  This was my first year since we've been married that I wasn't involved in RCIA up at church.  While I did miss being involved, it was nice to be able to totally focus on spending the time with family and not the usual rush of things that goes with Holy Week with RCIA.  We still attended Holy Thursday and Good Friday services, which were beautiful and full of meaning, as well as being a reminder of why we opt for 9:00am mass.  Evening mass in NOT a good idea for our girls.  9:00am is much better, mostly because they're still sleepy and are therefore content to just sit with us and not cause too much of a fuss.  I'm just going to say we had opportunity to earn some extra graces at Thursday and Friday's services and leave it at that.

Easter morning

Baskets and eggs waiting to be found by the girls

Coming down to see if there's anything in the baskets we set out the night before

Not too sure what she thinks of the situation

Checking out the goods.

Like all good little sisters, Claire was more interested in what was in Melanie's basket than what was in hers.

The eggs were a hit!

And yes, those are pom-poms in the basket instead of grass.  I bought the baskets on clearance last year and forgot to buy grass, which I didn't realize until Saturday and didn't want to send Matt out to get any.  I was planning on giving them the pom-poms anyway, so why not have them pull double duty? As an added  bonus there wasn't any annoying grass pieces laying all over the house afterwards.

I really like Claire's facial expression in this one.

"Gewwy beans!"

The first egg hunt of the day: finding the eggs the Easter Bunny left "hidden" around the living room.

Showing off one of the barrettes she got.

Claire found one!

Trying to eat some of dad's candy

Egg hoarder

Claire was not interested in posing for pictures before mass.

Melanie is much better trained in this area

This was the best shot we were able to get of both of them together.

The second egg hunt of the day: Grams and Gramps house

Every time Claire would try to get an egg Melanie's competitive spirit would flare up and she'd go in for the steal.  I'm trying to make sure Claire gets at least one egg.

Elizabeth's "Type A" personality in photos:

"Here Claire, the egg goes in the basket."

"I SAID it goes IN the BASKET!"

Oh whatever.  Let her play with it and be happy.

I'm still a work in progress.

Who needs a basket?

Unlike most kids, Claire likes to take eggs out of the basket instead of putting them in.

Egg hunt #3 : Home

Cousin Sara helping get an elusive egg.

Taking a break from hunting eggs for a bit of ball play

Check out my haul!

Taking a break for some jumping.  She's getting pretty brave with how high she'll go to jump.

And finally, the beautiful flowers my sister Laura brought from her garden so I could make a centerpiece.

We hope your family had a wonderful Easter full of relaxation, family and memories. We sure did!

Rejoice!  He is risen!