Easter 2014

Easter this year fell on April 20th.  So the Monday preceding that, we dyed Easter eggs for FHE:

We did regular plain colors, we colored with white crayon on a few before dipping to make designs, and we dipped them in glitter! So fun!

The Halls joined us for some egg-straordinary fun!

 I bought the eggs from the store instead of using our chickens' eggs because I thought that the white eggs would take dye better.  But later in the week, one of our chickens laid a really speckled brown egg and the girls desperately wanted to dye it.  So we boiled it and tried it--it worked great! It looked really awesome.  So that is good to know for future years that the brown eggs work just as well for dyeing as the white ones.  It's just a question of how many we have available.

We dyed 2 dozen eggs--that Easter bunny will be busy!

The Easter Bunny always comes on Saturday at our house, because he knows that Sunday is the day we think about Jesus, and celebrate the real meaning of Easter.  I tell the kids that although the Easter bunny and egg hunts and Easter baskets are fun, they are not what Easter is really about.

Easter bunny goodies!

Easter baskets

Easter dresses from Mom and Dad--we bought these at the last minute because they happened to have one in the right sizes for Hallie, Claire, and Evie.  Shae already had a nice yellow one that went with the colors nicely.

The Easter bunny hid all the plastic eggs inside, and he discovered that the fireplace rock made for some great hiding spots!

 Saturday morning, the Easter bunny woke up early and hid all the hard-boiled eggs outside in our front yard.  After that, Mom and Dad went to wake up the kids to see what the Easter bunny had brought!

I love this one of the bunny masks

   INDOOR EASTER EGG HUNT:

OUTDOOR EASTER EGG HUNT:

Shivering.  Although it turned out to be a beautiful day later, at 7:00 am, Wyoming springs are still pretty chilly!

Going for that orange egg there

Counting to make sure we found all the eggs

Results of the Easter egg hunt! Lots of eggs and happy kids!

We had to get all our egg hunting and Easter fun stuff done early because Taylor's baptism was that same day at 11:00 in Rock Springs.  We had to be there early to practice the cousins' song and so we had to leave our house by 9:30 with everyone dressed up for the baptism.  Whew! Not an easy feat with all these cuties! But we did it, although we had to do a lot of hair in the car on the way to Rock Springs. 

Baptism day!

Pretty girls!

 Hallie gave a talk on baptism, which she wrote the day before.  She did a fantastic job! Rob also gave a talk on baptism, and he talked about the dream that one of the prophets had about "What have you done with my name?" and compared it to us taking the name of Jesus Christ upon us at baptism.  They both did very well.  I conducted the music and led the cousins' song "When I am Baptized".

All the cousins who sang--you can't really see Braden because he's hiding behind Ashlynn.  And Alexis played the piano for them.  It was cute and sweet.

 It was a wonderful event for Taylor and we were so glad to be there to support her.

Later that day we had dinner at Mark and Kelly's because they had lots of family come up for Easter weekend so we had a bunch of family time.  We had a shrimp boil, which I've never had before.  It was very fun and different.  We also had lumpia, a Filipino dish made by Aunt Serena, and it was fantastic! Uncle Scott and Aunt Robin, Uncle Randy and Aunt Serena, the Copelans and Grandma Henderson were all there.

It happened to be Stake Conference weekend for our stake over Easter weekend, so Saturday night was the adult session.  Right after the adult session was our dress rehearsal for the Garden.  The Copelans stayed the night at our house and I was the worst hostess in the world! Because of all the events on Saturday, I didn't have a chance to even make up the guest bed (Hallie's bed) for them! They had to sleep on her sheets! I felt awful.  I hope they will give me another chance and stay with us again sometime.

EASTER SUNDAY:

Can't pass up the family picture on Easter Sunday! I love how the dresses look!

Stake Conference was wonderful, two of my friends spoke in the general session and did a great job! Amy Jensen spoke, who is Sherry Goble's daughter (Sherry is my next door neighbor and faithful Zumba attendee) and Marsha...can't remember her last name, but she's a sweetheart.  I just recently met her and visited with her while our kids were playing at the school right after school got out one nice warm day.  They are both wonderful women and great examples.  I had a bit of a hard time listening because my kids were pretty distracting, but all that I got to hear of the meeting was fantastic!

And I got an Easter present too! My very first tulip bloomed on Easter Sunday! YAY!

 We walked to Stake Conference with the Copelans, and I couldn't resist a few pictures of Shae on the walk home.

After Stake Conference, we all met at Grandma and Papa's house for Easter supper and a kids' Easter egg hunt! Everyone but the Killpacks was there, including Robyn and Scott and Crystal and Grandma Henderson:

Ready to go!

Afterwards, Hallie had only found one egg, and she was pretty upset.  Immediately, all of her cousins flocked to her and all shared their eggs with her.  It was so sweet.

Then they all pooled their candy and shared it--with no adult help.  They are good kids!

It is always great to have cousin time, especially since we haven't seen cousins much in the last few months! We are so grateful for our wonderful family! It was a really great Easter Sunday, and the best part of it was at the end when we performed the Garden.  More on that in the next post...