Easter Weekend

We had planned to go to the Easter Festival at our old church this morning for quite some time.  We've always been on the working end of it, so we were excited to take Evelyn and let her explore and enjoy it.  Unfortunately, it didn't quite go as planned.  There were so many people there (I've never seen it that crazy!), so everything had a line.  We got there just as the egg hunt for her age group was starting, but by the time we got into the building, it was done.  Fail #1.  So we took her over to the bounce house for the little toddlers.  Of course she loved this!

Jump!

She looks so serious here.

We tried to wait in line for a couple of things (cookie walk, petting zoo, snow cones), but she just wasn't having it.  The sun had come out by then, and she wasn't too fond of it beating down on her while she had to be held.  Fail #2.  So we figured we'd take her to McDonald's and let her play in the play place there while we ate some lunch.  Lunch was fine, but the play place was packed with big kids not really watching for little ones.  Fail #3.  So we took our crying little home and put her to bed (with no pluggie).

After naps, we went to Build A Bear - which was good, then let her run around at the mall play place for a while.  It was better than McDonald's, but still not grand.  At one point, three older kids trapped her in a tunnel while one of them growled in her face.  Poor Evelyn was trying to back away from him, but the other two had her trapped in.  Needless to say, I grabbed that kid and told him he needed to stop doing that to her.  Clearly his parents were not watching because he was being a bully in the first place, and no one said a word about me touching their kid.  Some parents amaze me.  I just want to smack them (with the love of Jesus, of course).

We came home for dinner, and Daddy thought it was a great night for a picnic (he was right).  So we ended the night on a good note!

This was the best shot we could get of all three of us!

On Sunday we went to church and had a sweet, sweet time in the Presence of the risen Jesus!  Our pastor gave an awesome sermon unlike any I had heard on an Easter previously.  I'm so used to the "yay - Jesus is risen, celebrate life" sermons (not to discount those!), but he took a forensic approach to the resurrection.  It's historical fact that Jesus lived and died, yet more than 2000 years later - despite countless people searching - His body is still not found here on earth.  Amazing!  I wish I had a link of the message to post here, but I can't find it on the website yet.  Anyway, Evelyn is so spoiled there as well, several of the young adults in the church made Easter baskets for the kids, which of course she loved.  Once we got home, we had our own Easter egg hunt and basket opening.

Playing with her new vanity (which will shortly be up in our bathroom so she can play with her makeup instead of wanting mine!)

Did you guys see this?!

The best family shot we got...

Hey, these eggs have chocolate in them!

Our little Easter princess!

Daddy helping Evelyn find all her eggs

She then piled them all up at the bottom of her slide and decided to go down the slide into them

Weeeee!!!

Finding more chocolate in the eggs

This little girl loves chocolate.  She's had it before, but today it was a whole new world of fun.  Twice we caught her getting into her basket to get some.  The first time, Dan was cleaning up after lunch and I was upstairs folding laundry.  I came down to get her to take her upstairs for a nap, and found a trail of Hershey's kiss wrappers from the stairs to her (3 of them) and a little girl with a face full of chocolate grinning from ear to ear.  I napped while she did, and Dan came to wake me up, leaving her downstairs for about 30 seconds, during which time she found her basket with the candy on the ledge and got another piece.

She's definitely my daughter... (and my Mom's granddaughter...)

We had dinner at some friends' house.  They had some glow-in-the-dark eggs and glow sticks, so we had one more egg hunt as it got dark.  While we were waiting for it to get darker, it was fun with bubbles time.

Evelyn LOVES bubbles - she was laughing and squealing for a good 10 minutes here

Bubbles!

Got one in the face!

Waiting inside while the Dad's hid the eggs

The hunt is on!

By now, she had figured out that all of the eggs had candy in them, so she had to open every one to see!

Such a fun day.  So many people told us that holidays are so much better with kids - and it's totally true.  I'm so glad that Sunday redeemed the failure that was Saturday.  I guess that's kind of parallel to what the disciples probably felt 2000+ years ago.  I'm sure they felt like things just couldn't go their way on Saturday, only to be confronted with the reality of a risen Jesus on Sunday!