Easter Weekend

What a great weekend it was!  Easter is always a highlight of the year for me ... such rich meaning and truth to the very holiest of days.  It came on the tail end of Spring Break this year, which was great.  On Saturday, the boys woke up to their Easter baskets filled with a few goodies - basically a new shorts outfit and socks ... I'm practical to a fault!  Then Bowdie and I hid eggs around the house and we had a hunt.  We love the Resurrection Eggs, which tell the Easter story with little objects, so those were the main eggs we hid.  Then we sat and the boys used the eggs to help tell the story of Christ's sacrifice.  It was very special!  Then we caught wind that the Warbingtons were heading to the park to bike ride, picnic and letter box.  So, of course, we tagged along!  It was the PERFECT day to be out ... not too cool, not too hot.  We had a great bike ride, with Jacob taking his very first ride around the 2.2 mile loop.  He did SO good - his little legs were going as fast as they could!  After our ride, we parked the bikes and walked with our picnic and found a table to enjoy our meal.  Then we took off, directions in tow, to letter box.  This is a fun activity that Stacey discovered in Family Fun magazine.  Basically, people take a box, put a stamp and a journal in it, and hide it.  They are all around the country, literally!  Then they go to a special website and put directions of how to find their box and it's location.  We had to even use a compass ... SCARY!  But we found one right there at the park and we stamped our own journal and used our own stamp to stamp the journal in the box.  It's really fun!  After that, we finished our walk by looking at the beautiful waterfall on the Carriage Trail at the park.  It was incredible because we had just had several rainy days.  We headed home and rested that afternoon ...

Sunday morning, we all got ready in our coordinating outfits (OF COURSE)!!  I know that some people think it's crazy to get new outfits for Easter and even crazier to all match, but this is something that my parents started when I was little and I love it!  I love the idea of a fresh new outfit ... depicting the fresh new heart the LORD gives us through His death, burial and resurrection.  And I love us to match ... we are a 'team' afterall ... funny how most don't mind matching on a ballfield, but not with their own loved ones ... hmmmm ...

ANYWAY ... we were able to get some great shots of our family and the Warbington kids as well.  Please let me say - we did not start out for all the Cleft kids to match, but Children's Place had such cute clothes and such good prices, that Stacey, Amanda and I couldn't pass it up!  It's amazing how much our tastes are alike!  Anyway, I hate that the Stokes kids couldn't get in the shot, but they go to church an hour earlier than us, so we missed them!  

We then headed to Mom and Dad's after a great Easter service celebrating His work in our lives.  We enjoyed time with the Strickland gang and Mom continued the tradition of the Resurrection Eggs at the lunch table, as well as giving us our note we wrote at Christmas telling Jesus what His gift would be for the year.  Good time of accountability!  The kids had a blast outside going to the creek with my mom - somehow they all accidentally fell in ... sounds fishy to me!  And, of course, there was an egg hunt too!

It was a wonderful weekend full of wonderful memories ... so thankful!