Easter Weekend

We celebrated Easter all weekend long in this house!  The festivities started on Thursday when Sam took these little goodies to all his friends at school for his Easter party... thanks Pinterest!  

Who has an original idea anymore?!

Saturday started out with an Easter celebration at Amanda's church.  Fairhaven's first annual community-wide Easter celebration was a huge success!  Over 1,500 people came out to play games, win prizes, find Easter eggs, eat food and praise Jesus.  Here's to a new yearly pastime in this town!

The petting zoo

Cameron rode his first horse!  This cowboy loved it!

Sam played in the corn troughs and won a cupcake on the cake walk!

Kayden and his prizes he won at the games

Then sometime Saturday night, the Easter Bunny left this for Sam.  A wheel barrel and shovel, a peas and carrot baseball bat and ball, some major bubble supplies, sidewalk chalk, popsicle makers, and some Elmo flatware, books and stickers.  That bunny knows my boy :)

He went straight for the bubbles!

Daddy made special Easter Sunday pancakes before church.  Pancakes are pretty special in this house anyway, but these really took the cake!  (No pun intended.)

A family photo before heading off to church...

After church, we had lunch and an Easter egg hunt at Aunt Suzy's.  There no less than 300 eggs for these five little guys to hunt.  They would fill up their buckets, come back to the house for drop-off, then go back out and reload!  I tried to get a picture of all the egg hunters, but getting them to all look the same way at once is quite a task...This is as good as it got!

Sam insisted on getting this egg for his basket!  

Caleb and Austin headed off to the right of the driveway to an area all to themselves.

Sam was still working on the concept of egg hunting.  He would stop ever so often, 

sit down and dump his eggs out while he rested up.  

These egg hunters had the hang of this game...and a momma to help hold the bucket!

Kayden didn't let climbing a tree stop him from finding every egg!

Counting the loot!  

This picture cracks me up because no one seems to notice 

Sam is sneaking sips of Daddy's drink! :)

It was Suzy's birthday, so she opened gifts after lunch.  When she finished, she said she had some "games" for us all to play.  So, we headed back outside.  

First up, an egg race between the ladies...

Grammy wins!  

(Although her methods were controversial)

The guys turn, except they had to balance the eggs in their mouth!

In the midst of commotion (cheating) all around, Drew stays calm and walks on...

During the race, Sam and Grammy are driving the tractor.

But in the end, it's Michael who wins the race!

Next up, an all out silly string battle!

With a little training, these guys were really opponents!

And, what's an Easter egg hunt without a blue robin's egg to make your lips match your shirt!?
Happy Easter everyone!  May we never lose sight of the sacrifice for which we celebrate!

Easter is what makes Christmas so special!

Spring Break - Part 2

Yes, I'm aware this post is over a week late, but here is part 2 of Spring Break...

Wednesday:  Sam's first trip to the dentist

Like a champ, Sam rocked his first trip to the dentist.  Everyone was so nice!  Since it was a children's dentistry practice, they were experts in how to make kids comfortable.  They had TVs on the ceiling, stickers, prizes, fun toothbrushes, the works.  It certainly helped that his hygienist could also make balloon animals and he got a fish in his goodie bag.  Sam was so brave!  He let the hygienist brush his teeth with special toothpaste and the dentist gave him a thumbs up on his teeth.  We will see them again with a smile in six months.

And, how does one celebrate a good report from the dentist?  With ice cream, of course!  We met these two Asian cuties at Baskin Robbins for a little snack date.  Big B and little b are as cute as ever!  It was great to see them, and we wish we could play with them more often!

Sam REALLY enjoyed his strawberry frozen yogurt!

Our 3rd Anniversary

Today was also our 3rd anniversary.  The traditional third anniversary gift is leather, known for its flexibility and durability against the elements.  Much like a good marriage, it holds up to the bumps and bruises of life and still maintains it's strength.  The modern third anniversary gift is crystal, beautiful yet functional in a multitude of settings.  My gift from Michael was this beautiful crystal flower vase with "B" etching.  A perfect gift, something I wouldn't buy for myself, but will treasure for years to come.  I didn't know it, but it seems I actually bought Michael a new set of pocket knives for our anniversary too... I guess this is kinda like the steam mop "he" bought me for Mother's Day.

 I took the more traditional approach and had these custom leather luggage tags engraved with our names and a quote from The Hunger Games (our anniversary movie date).  Now, whenever we see our luggage tags, we will be reminded of how we celebrated our third anniversary.

Friday:  Our 3rd anniversary date - The Hunger Games premiere

I have been reading this novel to my students for three years now, over 400 students have experienced this book with me.  I purchased the audio book for Michael to listen to in the car on one of his long trips back and forth to Texas a few years ago, and he listened to the whole book before he made it to Fort Worth.  We have both been hooked on this book and anxiously awaiting the movie for a long time now.  And, on the weekend of our third anniversary, we attended the premiere together.  We both loved the movie...and the sushi dinner that followed closely afterward!

The rest of Spring Break was spent cleaning, catching up on laundry and attending church and spending time with my sweet family who I am blessed to have walk along side me in this life.  I am surely blessed!