Easter Sunday

We had a wonderfully blessed Easter this year. For some reason each year Easter becomes more and more meaningful to me. I think it's because each year the girls get a little bit older and more able to understand the full depth of it's true meaning and all that Christ surrendered for us.

On the days leading up to Easter we read some great lessons on Jesus death and resurrection. I found the lesson plans at DTLK kids. They have whole lesson plans with the story, crafts and ideas for teaching little ones. This year we skipped the crafty parts and simply read the lessons. It's written in a way that is very understandable for children without taking anything away from the story or glossing over the truth. Hope that makes sense! I love that it helps the girls see how thankful we should be for our salvation, because Jesus Christ paid the debt we could never pay for ourselves!

On Sunday morning we had the girls hunt for their Easter baskets. We hid them and gave the girls clues to search around the house for them. A really fun tradition that they love.

Then we went to church to worship and fellowship and hear the message. It was such a good message with a clear presentation of John 3 and the gospel. The thing I was most blown away by on Easter morning was the worship time. WOW, it was so amazing and glorifying. Above you'll see I posted the Revelation song by Philips, Craig and Dean. It happens to be one of my Mom's favorite songs right now and it is simply amazing. Literally gives me chills every time I hear it. Well the worship band at our church sang it on Sunday for the first time and it was AWESOME! I just LOVE worship like that!

After church we came home and spent the afternoon enjoying the glorious, warm weather with our family. We had an egg hunt for our girls and my three nephews and a nice family Easter dinner prepared by my awesome hubby. The night was finished off in the living room watching the Red Sox/Yankees season opener. All in all, it was a wonderful, wonderful day. I am blessed. I would not be who I am, or where I am, without Christ in my life and I'm SO thankful for that!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OK, I have to say a little something about the whole Easter dress thing this year. I will admit, I had a grumpy, less than spiritual attitude over this issue. I hate to say it out loud but the fact remains that I can be a control freak when it comes to my girls. It's not a virtuous quality and it's something I'm trying to work on. But needless to say, this year the battle was over dresses ... and shoes.

We go to church every week and most weeks the girls may wear whatever they wish. We ask them to dress up a little more than regular clothes, but other than that, we don't say much. But at Christmas and Easter I like for them to dress 'special' and also like them to match. Call me silly, but it's just what I like. My hubby thinks I'm goofy and says, 'they're not twins, you know!'

Anyway ... to make a long story short my oldest would not co-operate and finally Grandma offered to shop with her and she finally found something she was happy with. Not what I would have chosen, however it DID look pretty on her.

Then I made the mistake AGAIN of taking them shoe shopping ... and more drama ensued with the same child!! I swear next year I might just shop on my own and bring the stuff home and say 'you're wearing this!' LOL

So, for the first year I can remember they are not matching for Easter ... but in the end I decided that life as a Mom is all about picking your battles. And since it was more about me wanting to control things, than something more important like modesty {which I'm sure will come up in future years!}... I chose NOT to fight this battle.

So here is 'Joy' in her dress {she decided to wear something she already had, and got new shoes}

And here is 'Hope' ...
My beautiful girls ...

I am one blessed Mama!

I love how much they love their Daddy! {and how much he loves them too!}

This is Bob's brother, his wife and their three sons ... aren't they so cute all dressed up?

This was in the afternoon after Bob and I had already changed into something more comfy ... it was HOT that day! A rarity for early April in New England!

Here are the kids all ready to hunt for eggs ...

I hope that each of you had a blessed Easter too!!