What Does Easter Mean to Me

As a child, I loved Easter.  I remember the city Easter Egg hunts where they always had those few special eggs hidden that had a ticket for a big prize.  I never found one of the special eggs, but I still loved going to the hunts.

I remember Easter morning waking up ready to hunt for our baskets.   We had to follow a group of clues, which began as simple drawings that led you from one spot to the another.  As you got older the clues became much more difficult, little riddles; they become especially difficult when my Dad began writing our clues.

I remember pretty dresses, and dying Easter Eggs.  I remember the Easter Egg tree my mom had which was decorate with very fancy eggs that she had painted.

Now as an adult, for me Easter means hope.

Easter means celebrating that someone loved all of us enough to suffer and die for each of us.  Easter means celebrating that not only did He suffer and die for us, but after three days He came back to life, opening the door for all us to live again.  I believe it and know it to be true.  He lives. Hallelujah!

Wordful Wednesday: Easter Morning

Every Easter we take a traditional picture with the kids sitting with their baskets all dressed for church.

This is our picture this year.

And for fun last year's picture

No we didn't skip church; this year Easter happened to fall on my church's semi-annual General Conference (which I will share my thoughts about soon), which means we got to stay home and watch the broadcast from the comfort of our home in our pajamas.

Alex is now dangerous with a bow-and-arrow and the boys are having tons of fun with their ghasts (it's a Minecraft thing).

Lucas joined in the dinner preparation
And we had a wonderful dinner to end an amazing day.

But mostly we remembered the true meaning to the season, that Jesus suffered, died and lives again. That He lives, to save us and redeem us.

How did you celebrate Easter? 

Friday 5: Easter, Weeds and Tantrums

It's time for Friday 5!  (#Friday5) A time to share 5 things and 5 pictures from the week.

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It's a great way to share those little things you want to remember that might not need a whole blog post on their own.

This week my guest co-host is Jilly from Hi! It's Jilly.  I more recently met Jilly through a blogging Facebook group.

 I had been to Jilly's blog a few times, but always through a link to a specific post and often on my phone.. so well let's just say I reintroduced myself to her about 3 times!

Jilly is a mom of triplets!  She shares crafts, recipes, and things from everyday life, which can definitely be entertaining when you have triplets.  Jilly's blog is one I have more recently found, but definitely one I will be regularly reading.

Here are the questions I asked Jilly:

1. Why did you start blogging? How long have you been doing it?  I originally started blogging 6 years ago to record what was happening with our family and to keep in touch with far away loved ones. Then, 2 years ago I started "Hi! It's Jilly" to share crafts, recipes, and funny stories with a wider audience than just our family and friends.

2. What is your favorite way to relax at the end of the day?  At the end of the day I usually just veg in front of the TV. Not very exciting, I know. 

3. Which do you like better salty or sweet treats? Sweet, for sure!

4. What is your least favorite thing about blogging? My least favorite thing about blogging is trying to "keep up" with everything. There are so many things to keep track of-- Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+...and that's just the tip of the iceberg!

5.  What is a book (or movie) you love that you could read (or watch) over and over again.  I looooooove Harry Potter! I could read the books and watch the movies all the time. Might sound lame for a 30-something, but I don't care! Ha ha!

Thank you Jilly!  I agree about the least favorite part of blogging.  You can find Jilly at the following locations.

Blog: Hi! It's Jilly

Facebook: Hi! It's Jilly

Twitter: Hi_Its_Jilly

Pinterest: Jillian Robertson (Hi! It's Jilly)

Instagram: hi_its_jilly

Google+: Jillian Robertson

5 Things

1. This weekend our family helped distribute bags in our subdivision as part of a community food drive and the annual Mormon Helping Hands.  As part of my church service (or calling), I serve as the Stake Public Relations Social Media Specialist.  I was taking pictures and videos of my kids delivering the bags.  It started off wonderfully, with the cute picture you will see below, but then when Lucas beat Alex to a house that she thought she was going to drop a bag off at, well all her red-headed drama broke out.  Ryder ended up delivering almost all the bags himself while the other two fought.   At least they served..... right??  

2. I really like naps, I think I have taken a nap, at least a 20 minute one every day this last week, thankfully my kids have learned to leave me be during these little naps, as trust me it isn't pretty if you wake me up during one.  

3. Wednesday night Alex performed with the first grade classes in a cute performance.  Their performance was  called 'How Does your Garden Grow'.  My favorite song was definitely the rap about weeds and watching Alex totally get her groove on.

4. As Lucas was eating his chocolate bunny from Easter, he saw the made in America symbol, and misread it as "probably made in America" instead of "proudly made".   We laughed for a long time about that one.

5. Speaking of Easter- I once wrote a whole post about how I can never get a good picture on Easter.  But this year it changed!  This was the first year where I got lots of cute pictures.  Though I did make my kids do a silly picture in front of the couch, in honor of all of the fails from the previous years (see below).

5 Pictures

On a Picnic with my little guy

Easter Egg hunt with friends 

Ready to deliver bags- and still happy at this point

Alex in her program (taken with my phone from far away) she is right below the exit sign

The annual Easter picture sitting by the couch- this year purposely silly 

And just for fun here is from a year ago

What is your Friday 5? Come join in the fun.  And stop by and say hi to Jilly.

An Egg-tastic Easter

Cheesy title much?  Yep, I would say so, but we did have a great Easter.   We planned on hunting for the baskets before church, but sleep won and time slipped away, so we were mean and made the kids wait until after church.

Having to wait did have one great benefit, they all cooperated really well for the mandatory dressed up nice Easter pictures before they were able to look for their baskets.

We had some fun too of course.

Then it was basket hunting time.  We don't just hide the baskets and send the kids off to find them, they have to follow the clues (a tradition we have continued from my childhood).  The older the kid gets, the harder the clues get.

Ryder's clues were just pictures he had to follow.
Thankfully despite my poor drawings he was able to figure out all his clues.

Alex was able to pretty quickly figure out her's.
  The clue she figured out the fastest was the one read:
"It's often a mess
much to my distress,
But it's your space,
Your very own place."

As soon as she read the mess line, before she even read the rest, she knew exactly where to go.  Yea, that is saying something.

Lucas actually saw (and started figuring out) his clues that morning, shouldn't have left them on my nightstand.  So after church we re-wrote his clues, making them even harder, complete with a word search that led him to Minecraft on the computer where Eric had created a world with a sign for his next clue.

Lucas' clues before I cut them out

In the end they were all able to successfully find their baskets and enjoy their spoils.


We finished the night with a fancy ham dinner and finally at 7:00 actually dyed some Easter Eggs.

Ryder even painted one of his eggs

Hey, better later than never right?

How was your Easter?  What do you do with your Easter baskets?

Easter Picture Fail

I am a photographer. I love pictures.  I love taking pictures.  I know the little tips and tricks to get kids to smile, to get them to look at the camera.   I have the patience to wait it out when they don't behave unless it is my own kids.  I take pictures all the time.  When a Holiday rolls around, of course I am going to take my kids' pictures.

Halloween

Father's Day

Christmas

Random Day in Flower Fields

Oh wait that last one isn't a holiday... but anyway on most occasions I can get a good picture

And then there is Easter.

For some reason I cannot get a good shot on Easter.

There was this diabolical from last year

Not one to quit, I tried again this year.  "After everyone finds their baskets I want to get a few pictures." I warned ahead of time.

"Okay so everyone grab your baskets and come sit for just a few pictures"

"Miss- please smile.  The sooner you smile the sooner we can be done."
 Click, click, click

"Come on your brothers are losing their smiles now!  Please!"

"Yea! You smiled!  Wait Lucas, where you sticking out your tongue?"

"Oh I give up!"

Happy Easter