Happy Easter

"Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and Hallelujah is our song."

Happy Easter!

May your day be beautiful and blessed with friends and family.

On Friday night we went to our church for Shadow Stations of the Cross. The Youth group does it and they do a great job. We all went. Ethan was in the choir.

Saturday morning we had our annual Easter Egg Hunt in the cul de sac. Hundreds of eggs gone within a few minutes. All the kids have such a great time - lots of fun! And the weather cooperated enough that we were able to hang out and eat breakfast together as friends & neighbors. It's nice to see everyone after "hibernating" during the Winter.

Then Tom cleaned out our garage and we loaded up our van with donations. We took a van load to our local Goodwill.

Easter Sunday.

Our day started out a little early, but once again our boys knew to wake us with kindness. Rolling over and finding a cup of fresh coffee is a nice way to greet a new day.

Then the girlies arrived in our room. They were there to beg us to come downstairs. They didn't want anyone to go through their basket until mommy and daddy had seen the "display" and letter the Easter Bunny had left. Sweet.

Then I saw the boys' bedroom door swing open and heard "Momma?"

Jakey can reach the door from his crib.

I got out of bed and was blessed with a grinning little boy - very happy to see me. I picked him up and we went downstairs. I found my camera so I could capture the excitement of it all.

After one piece of candy each, we had breakfast with Tommy and then started the craziness of getting everyone bathed and dressed.

It wouldn't be so "crazy" except that we usually wait so long before getting ready. Today our boys wanted me to play video games with them - I couldn't resist. How often do older boys want their mommies to play video games with them.

Our girls were excited to put on pretty Spring dresses. They looked beautiful and our boys were very handsome as we got into our 2 cars to go to church.

Tom left first so he could get Ethan there on time for choir. We live right by our church, but there was so much traffic. The good thing was that half the traffic was going to church and half was leaving. So even though it took longer to get into the parking lot, I got a great parking space :o)

Mass was beautiful. The children's choir sounded wonderful.

When we got home we took a few family pictures outside, then went in

for a little lunch before making the ham and sides for dinner.

I unfortunately had woken up with one of my headaches, so I tried to take it easy. Jakey was very tired so I took him up to my bed. We laid down and cuddled together, falling asleep. Jakey is like a teddy bear. He loves to hug and snuggle. (He just started really giving great hugs - the kind where their little arms just wrap around your neck. He really is the sweetest baby I know.)

Anyways, we slept for about 2 hours while Tom let our older children play outside. He played basketball with our boys and our girls drew with chalk. Turned out to be a very nice day outside.

When Jakey and I got up, we went downstairs to find my wonderful husband with dinner almost completely prepared. I love that Tom loves to cook, because I really do not.

We had a very nice dinner together as a family.

And Baby 8 was rolling around a lot this evening. Guess he/she really enjoyed dinner too.

It was a beautiful blessed day.

Easter Sunday