Easter Celebrations

Easter is always such an emotional time for me, to think about how much God loves us all to send his Son to die for us is simply mind boggling!  

Our church always has a Love Feast/Foot washing service on the Thursday before Easter.  This year we decided to go and take the kids to experience it for the first time.  It was simply amazing.  The kids did a great job and several adults commented that they were so happy to see our whole family participate.  We will definitely do it again!

Easter Sunday started early (Em was up at 3:30 and having trouble going back to sleep because of all her excitement!!).  We did get up though and go to the 7:00 sunrise service.  Landon was a little grouchy at first, but after breakfast he perked right up.  He still was not thrilled with taking all of these pictures, though.  After breakfast at church, the youth hosted an Easter egg hunt for the kids.  They divide the kids up by age groups and hide eggs for them to find in the different classrooms.  Our kids were so excited by all the candy!

 After church, we came home and opened Easter baskets.  They got a lot of outside toys like bubbles, chalk, jump rope, and bug collecting kit.  We're also trying to grow some daisies and tomatoes in small pots.

Landon trying out his new jump rope.

For lunch, we went over to mom and dad's.  It was absolutely delicious as always!  I just hope someday I can cook as well!  God sent us a gorgeous Easter day so the kids actually got to hunt eggs outside without coats.

2nd cousins in their Easter fineness!

We always order 2 tulips to decorate the church on Easter in memory/honor of our grandparents.  This year, we picked up 6 (Frye's and Hahn's) and have had a wonderful smelling kitchen all week!

The weekend after Easter, we celebrated with the Hahns.  We had yummy kabobs and the kids had a blast hunting more eggs and opening their Easter baskets.

Had to add in a picture of Emerson's style (fancy bow and dress up earrings)

Spring Break Trip- Kalahari Resort/Indoor Water Park

Ahhh-Spring Break!  A wonderful invention for all of us teachers (and students) to relax and refresh before finishing up the school year.  Matt and I prefer to keep Spring Break pretty light and easy.  We usually save the big trips for summer time.  So this year (on the advice of my co-workers) I planned a trip to Sandusky, Ohio to stay at the Kalahari Resort/Indoor Water Park.  Let me tell you, it was a blast!  Everyone had a great time.  Emerson was just a little short to ride some of the bigger slides, but Landon could do almost all of them.  They did a great job with all of the water in their faces and were really brave on all of the slides.  We were so proud of how patient they were waiting their turns and they held it together really well even though they were exhausted by the end of the trip!

Em is scared of the "rhino" :)

 We spent most of our time at the water park, but we also visited the indoor dry playground and the arcade.

Landon throwing balls into the ball pit.

Both kids wanted to play the game where they could win candy!

The only casualty was a lost Flashlight Friend.  Landon brought his blue puppy dog with a flashlight in its tummy and the dog never made it home.  We called the hotel, but no luck. :(    Overall, though, we had a great time.  The water wasn't too cold and the air was really warm.  We'd recommend Kalahari for a short mini vacation!