Easter Sunday

Our Easter family picture. Yay!! 

(The boys were looking at their friend who had just plowed into the stage and fell down and was crying big alligator tears)

We had a wonderful morning celebrating our Risen Savior! 

The tomb may be empty, but my heart is full. 

Why is it full? Because Jesus is Lord of my life, He is the reason I have hope, and it is for Him that I live. It is full because God showed His ultimate love for me by sending his only Son to die for MY sins.  THAT is love. His LOVE fills my heart and overflows into my life so I can pour it out on others. 

We're not really into the Easter bunny, my neglected children didn't receive candy or hunt for eggs. I'm trying to come up with some meaningful, eternally significant, and fun traditions we can do as a family for Easter. I want my kids to remember Jesus, not eggs and a bunny. We made some resurrection rolls and as we made them together I explained the story of Jesus' death and resurrection to Josiah. He has a difficult time grasping what I am talking about, as it doesn't make sense to him yet, even though he's heard the story over and over. This is why I want to emphasize Jesus, not other stuff... in his mind, if Easter is about Jesus then what in the world is all this egg stuff??

This is the most dressed up we've ever gotten for church! They sure looked cute sitting together listening to their daddy and the band practice.

At church this morning we had a great group of people. A lot of visitors, and we're busting at the seams in our children's classes. 12 kiddos in just the babies - 2 year olds! 15 three - 5 year olds, and 15 older kids! Will you pray for God to send more children's workers, we could use quite a few more!

Though our family isn't big into the Easter bunny stuff, our church planned an outreach event this weekend to make connections and give a little love to the community. Easter Egg hunts are a BIG deal around here. So for the 3rd year, we had an easter egg hunt for all ages with 15,000 eggs, free popcorn, cotton candy, and several bounce houses. We didn't do much advertising at all, I just put it in the community calendar on the local newspaper's website (for free). Lo and behold, 2 local TV stations came out and interviewed Justin and it aired that night, and the newspaper ran a story about it in the Sunday paper! Totally unexpected. Having over 2000 people there was also unexpected! Our hope and prayer is that God would use the connections made this past Saturday to bring glory to Him. We never know how something as small as a free event, and a conversation with a kind person, can impact someone's life.

 Leah and I took some pictures using my remote shutter release for the camera. We had a good time. She mostly enjoyed using my chubby cheeks as a pacifier! hahaha! Anything she sees she immediately wants to put in her mouth.

 She has the BEST smile!! 

(Thanks Nana and Papa for my most beautiful dress! ~ Leah)