Easter was a great celebration and especially neat to see our boys' understanding of the true meaning of Easter develop more. One thing is for sure that no matter what our life circumstances are, we always have a reason to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus and I don't want to ever get numb or complacent to that defining miracle. It seems too often that we get so caught up in our daily activities, problems, and issues and forget we have that same resurrection power at our disposal every day. I know when I tap into it, I find whatever I'm facing isn't really so big in the grand scheme of things and I experience the strength and power of Christ in new and exciting ways!
I just love getting to have a whole day or in our family's case a whole week and then some devoted to this celebration. It is always fun to have a reason to get together with all of our families and just enjoy family moments and make fun memories and here is some of ours....
Papa loves for the boys to climb up and sit with him in his recliner...
Let the spoiling at Nana and Papa's begin. They had Easter baskets full of goodies and special surprises lined up on their fireplace for all 5 grandchildren all of who are 4 years older and under. What fun! :)
Peyton had my basketball when I was a little girl and he would carry it with him throughout the house practicing with it. He got his 1st basketball that is just the right size for him!
Landon wasn't left out on the goodies; he got a stuffed animal Barney and DVD and a cute outfit but getting all the hugs and kisses, especially from Nana was his favorite thing!
We encouraged Grant to play with his new Operation game instead of the 500 piece puzzle he also received. He was so excited to start the 500 piece puzzle the next day.
Then, came Grant's class Easter egg hunt...
Grant and Peyton both got different colored jelly beans where each color represented a part of the Easter story...
I took the boys for our neighborhood Easter Egg hunt and it was divided into age categories so here is Peyton before his hunt...
Grant's Egg Hunt..
Peyton wanted to stand with Grant before his hunt actually began...
Grant found 2 prize eggs...
The Easter bunnies made a special appearance...
Landon's 1st Easter
Peyton is going through a phase where he is very scared of anything in a costume so he wasn't excited to see the Easter bunny, to say the least, but right before leaving, he asked to go see the bunnies and decided to hand them one of his bracelets that he got in one of his eggs so this was his only encounter with the Easter bunny.
In case we didn't have enough of egg hunts, we headed to another one the next day. This one was for the city of Acworth but organized and sponsored by my brother and parent's church. Since Vince went to the Braves' game with a friend when we had our neighborhood hunt, we decided to go to this one even though we didn't even have a 24 hour lapse between egg hunts. However, you won't hear any complaining from our boys. There were many highlights but this one was unique because the eggs were dropped from a helicopter.
Grant and Peyton showing each other the prizes inside their eggs...
After the hunt, they boys had a blast playing on the playground and participating in other activities. Here, Mimi is sliding with Grant and Peyton.
Grant got to climb a BIG rock wall for the first time while we were there.
Peyton was happiest blowing up the balloon he was given when he first arrived. He has a thing now where he wants to be the one to blow up the balloon and he has quite the air and lung power to do it. :)
Our Easter Service
Our new family tradition is making these Easter cookies that tell the true meaning of Easter. (see the post Easter Traditions for the recipe and activity). After our service, we came home and had dinner and did this activity before they went to bed. Peyton is beating the pecans and we explained how the soldiers beat and hurt Jesus.
Grant smelling the vinegar that goes in the cookie as we explained the Roman soldiers put some vinegar to Jesus' mouth for him to drink when he was on the cross.
Both Peyton and Grant got their own piece of tape to seal the oven door and that was paralleled to the rock sealing the tomb.
Easter morning the boys got up and were so excited to see what happened to their cookies because I told them there would be something different about their cookies in the morning. When they came downstairs, they were excited to see their Easter basket surprises from the Easter bunny but they were eager to see what was inside the oven. They found the surface of the cookie cracked and inside, the cookies were hollow and empty. We explained the tomb was empty just like their cookies and how that is the greatest part of the Easter story.
Then, we headed to a different Easter service followed by our traditional big feast at my grandparents' house. Mama always fills their HUGE dining room table with such a spread of delicious foods and she will not let anyone bring any food. She does it all herself! Easter is one of my favorite memories at my grandparents house and now I get to look forward to it as our boys make special memories there too. Mama and Paps had a special egg hunt just for our boys followed by some other neat times.
Paps playing peek-a-boo with Landon.
After the egg hunt, Paps took Grant and Peyton for a ride on the lawn mower. They had such a fun time driving it and there were a lot of laughs and BIG smiles. What fun memories!
Landon, got to take his picture on the lawn mower with Paps. It won't be long before he'll be driving it too. :(
We had a fun day with Mama & Paps. Before giving Grant one last hug as I put him to bed, he said, "Thank you Mommy for letting me stay a little longer at Mama & Paps' house. I had such a good time!"
Between all of our planned activities as I described under the post "Easter Traditions" and all the other Easter events our family participated in, it was hard to find a time to get with my parents for their Easter egg hunt with our boys. As if they were not already spoiled enough and now they were getting more surprises! :) So, we had an "After Easter Egg Hunt" at one of the playgrounds in our neighborhood.
Peyton opening one of his eggs and we read off the prize he would get. It was a new shirt!
Mimi & G-Pop with the boys and some of their prizes!
After playing, they got their final prizes at our house.
Peyton singing on his new microphone and playing the keyboard. He even belted out impromptu one of the lines from Blessed Assurance. He is quite a character with his love for sports and music. :)
Grant was thrilled with his Toy Story characters and cars. He couldn't get over that there were 2 different Buzz the Lightyears.
We were thrilled with Landon's name frame because both Grant and Peyton have one of their own. These are such special frames to us and there is so much effort that goes into selecting meaningful pictures that also fit inside each letter of thier names and this means just as much.
As you can see, it was a lot of fun memories!
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