Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!!

I hope you have had a wonderful day celebrating our risen Lord!!  JESUS IS ALIVE people - today, right now!!  I've been really thinking about that today - asking the Lord to challenge me to live in that reality every day, not just on Easter.  Remember this joy...remember this awe...remember the messy simplicity of it all.  I really missed our old Bethel family today (my church in West Lafayette) - I think it was a combination of knowing it was Pastor Jim's birthday (shout out!) and the excitement of knowing the kind of worship service they would have had today.  I was really excited to see this posted by one of them on Facebook (sorry, it's a Facebook video - so I can't share it fully here - hopefully this link works, though!):  Click Here  Torre (the girl singing) sang at our wedding - she is one of a handful of young ladies that I had the pleasure of knowing when I worked with the youth and college ministries at Bethel.  When I watched this - I bawled.  Partially because it was so incredible (you can see pieces of the drama to the right...I would have loved to see it all) - partially because I was so proud of Torre, she's all grown up and more beautiful then ever - but partially because I missed this particular church family of mine.  I miss the spirit of worship in that place.  I miss the open invitation for the Spirit to move, at whatever cost.  I miss the people.  I really try not to compare churches - because I know that every one is different, and that God has placed us here for a time for a reason - but it's really hard sometimes.

Sigh - OK...onto what was wonderful about today - celebrating our first Easter with Evelyn!  We went to church this morning, and had to wake her up early to go to the early service, so we opted to wait on the whole Easter bunny business.  Side note:  it's so odd to be on the parent side of this perpetual lie that we tell our children.  After church, we had a quick Skype date with my parents, younger sister and her family before Evelyn took a mammoth nap of 3 hours!  The 3 hour nap was actually perfect for the rest of our day, so we didn't wake her up.  After her nap, we took her outside to do the Easter bunny gig.  Here are some pictures of the fun:

 Tons of fun, girly things in her Easter basket - and she loves the drum the most.

Mr. Ware (my high school band teacher) would be so proud!

 I just want to hold it all - and play my drum.

 I do enjoy eating a pinwheel as well.

 Had to get rid of the drum to play with the eggs!

 I LOVE this picture!  My sweet baby girl!

 Pardon the snot running down her nose...she and I are allergic to something in our backyard that is blooming right now.  We both get runny noses and scratchy eyes out there.  Ugh.  It's only April.

After playing outside for a while, we came inside for lunch, then Skyped with Dan's family while we dressed Evelyn up in her bunny gear.  I found this a while back, and it was way too small for her now.  But it was cute - so, sorry kid.

 I love this picture because she was actually jumping...but her face is hilarious.

I finally changed her out of the too-small bunny gear, and we headed to the ballpark to watch our local minor league baseball team, the Hooks.  We met some friends from church there and had a really fun afternoon.  The weather was GORGEOUS - just a little breeze off the bay and in the 70s.  A great way to spend our Easter afternoon if we couldn't be with family!

We hope you all had a fantastic Easter!  Maybe next year we'll be closer to family!