Easter Sunday

I love Easter Sunday. To me, it's the most important day of the year. I saw a church's sign that said it's "the end of the Christmas story." Christmas is nice because it celebrates Christ's miraculous birth, but Easter celebrates Christ's resurrection which conquered death, something no one else can do. Without Easter, there is no reason to believe Christ is the Son of God sent to save us from eternal separation from God. Today is truly an amazing day, and we were fortunate to get to celebrate it in church and then with family.

Ryan and I had 8:30 nursery duty at our church, but then after nursery duty, we drove over to First Baptist Church of Chattahoochee which is the church I grew up in and where my parents and grandmother still attend. We met the four of them there just before 11:00. The girls stayed in the nursery there while we went to the service. I love visiting Chattahoochee; it feels like home. I learned about Christ at that church and for that reason alone will always love it. However, there are many other people and reasons that make me love it and always want to come back and visit. Dr. Haskell did a wonderful job which laid out why it makes more sense to believe Christ is who He claimed to be instead of not believing. It was a great sermon. After church we visited with old friends for a few minutes before heading home.

Both girls had woken up early this morning, so they fell asleep in the car. Knowing they wouldn't get a nap later on because we would be at my cousin's house, we left the car doors open and let them sleep for about 30 minutes. We just sat in chairs in the driveway talking and enjoying the weather. We finally woke the girls up to take some pictures before changing clothes to head over to my family get-together. Lily was not pleased that we had woken her up and was quite uncooperative in the picture-taking session. When we came inside, she had a mini-meltdown as she was exhausted but didn't want to go back to sleep. Finally, she calmed down and had fun looking through the things in her and Mia's Easter baskets. Lily received a Little People Springtime book, three Little Einstein books, new bathtub crayons (which calls "cray-crays"), a puzzle and a new book for her Leap Frog lap reader. Mia received a picture Bible, two teething rings (which seem to be needed these days), an activity dragonfly (crinkle sounds, mirror, etc) and an activity worm (plays music, counts, etc).

We got out to Judy and Robert's house just in time for lunch which is simply fantastic as my family is filled with wonderful cooks. It's always great to get together and catch up with one another. They have a playground, play house and bouncy for the kids so Lily had a ball. She was thrilled when Molly (my 4-year-old niece) arrived so they could play together. My cousin, Barbara, fed Mia and held her almost the entire time we were there which provided us a nice break and time to visit with others. Just before the egg hunt, we took the traditional picture of all the kids that were there which you'll see in below. Don't look too hard for Lily or Mia as neither one of them are in it. Mia was napping on Barbara's shoulder at the moment, and Lily sat there for a few minutes patiently, but it took too long for everyone to get situated, so she wouldn't stay put! She had a good time hunting eggs again and looking through them. After that, she played some more while we had dessert and then we all headed home. It was another great get-together!

Here are some pictures from the day...