Easter

We celebrated Easter with Jeff's side of the family at John and Char's.  Blogger has rearranged our pictures, but here you go...

We decided to take family pictures since we had the crew together, something that doesn't happen very often!

Here is John with Jamie and Michelle and the girls.

And here is our family.

Char had put together Easter baskets full of goodies for the kids, and I think the kites were the biggest hit.  Our visit included intermittent rain and thunderstorms, and on Easter, we had enough of a break in the rain for the kids to enjoy their kites.  

Like I said, Blogger rearranges pictures.  I had to get some pictures with just our kids.

This might be my favorite kite picture.

Even though I try hard to keep the focus of Easter on its true meaning, and try not to let it become Christmas Gift Opportunity Part 2, I did bring a couple of things for Hailey and Brianna:  a book and a Lego Classic set for each of them.  And, guess what - Michelle gave similar gifts to our kids - including the same Lego sets for the boys.  Great minds think alike, even if we don't check with each other!

We had an Easter egg hunt in the yard, thanks to Char having eggs and baskets ready, and Jonathan did the hiding with me as his trusty assistant.  He had a lot of fun hiding!

The younger kids had a lot of fun hunting.

Like I said, Jonathan had a lot of fun hiding the eggs.

Here we are back at the beginning of Easter morning.  We gave each of our kids a different Max Lucado book for Easter.

You never get too old for a picture book with a personal message.

You never get took old to play with Legos, either!

That's Jonathan on top of Jeff.  The kids slept here in the living room, right off the kitchen.  They did a really good job tuning out the light and the noise.

This was one of the tricks I had up my sleeve on the plane ride.  A new pack of Sharpies and some detailed bookmarks to color were the favorite activity on the plane...and at their grandpa's house, too. Sometimes it's hard for kids to occupy themselves at a house that doesn't have kids or kid stuff, and this activity helped all three kids.

We were really happy that Jamie, Michelle, Hailey, and Brianna made the trip out to join us for the birthday celebration and Easter.  We were especially happy that our kids could have some time with their only cousins on Jeff's side.  Here they are at Easter lunch (which I suppose is actually called Easter dinner.)  Char cooked a ton of delicious food.  Speaking of a ton, I'm noticing that my kids' portion sizes are significantly bigger than their cousins'.  And I'm laughing.  We do like to eat, I can't deny it!

We are thankful to have this reason to celebrate on Easter and every day.