Easter - long overdue

I finally have time tonight to catch up on Easter.  I didn't want to put Easter pics at the end of the birthday post, so here they are, a week late!

The Easter bunny was very generous to Miss Sylvia.  Stampers, bubbles, bunny ears, and a new book.  Hooray!

After church, we had brunch at Mom's house with the Eibens.  Sylvia and Charlie are finally old enough to love the idea of hunting for baskets and eggs!  They had a ball together.

Our attempt at a grand baby picture.  Someday this will work.

Getting rowdy on the back porch swing.

The Easter Bunny hid a basket here, too!

Chasing bubbles in the front yard.

Easy

How many did you get?

Open egg, eat jelly bean, repeat.

Next we took the kids down to the city Easter egg hunt and let me tell you something - that was not a good idea.  I knew it was risky because it started at 1:00, which is roughly nap time for the Nugget.  The mayor made all the kids wait...and wait...and wait...and THEN he let the older kids go first!  The poor toddlers had NO idea what was going on, all they knew is that other kids were lining up and they had to wait...and wait...and wait.  Meltdown city.  Total disaster.  EVENTUALLY the toddlers were allowed to dive into their section of the field (at least they had their own area), and I thought Sylvia would be a little hesitant or scared or....

No.  She took off.  Just like every other 2-4 year old.  Once they were let loose, they had a BALL!

Ruuunnnn!!!!

Charlie comforts Sylvia after an overwhelming jaunt in the egg field.

And that was only the first half of our day!  We went home, Sylvia took a loooong nap, she ate a sandwich when she woke up, and we were off to my Grandma's house for dinner and egg hunt #3, of which I have no pictures because by that point in the day I was DONE.  I'm really glad I was able to squeeze in that sandwich, because other than that, she ate chocolate and jelly beans ALL day.  Oh well.  I'll update our eating adventures in another post, let's just say Easter Sunday spiraled into a sugar-induced meltdown...from ME.  I'll also just say that after a week of sticking to our guns, we now have a child who eats dinner.  But that's neither here nor there, the point is - Easter was FUN!

Easter Weekend

Would you believe I forgot to take my cameras when we traveled North for Sylvia's First Easter?  What kind of crummy Mom am I?  Psh.  I should lose my Mommy Photographer license.  Appalling.  Embarrassing.  Just downright irresponsible, really.

Lucky for me, Grammy had her camera out and ready all weekend long.  So here are a few pics of our weekend.

We arrived on Saturday.  Sylvia slept on the drive from here to there, so when we got to Mom's house, we told Sylvia we were getting back in the car to go see a butterfly exhibit, and she did not mind one little bit.  In fact, she was pretty excited about all the commotion:

The Butterfly Exhibit was absolutely amazing.  On the way in, the line was a little slow, so we posed for a family photo with some pretty flowers.  When we started walking again, my little cousin said to me, "I really hope we see at least ONE butterfly!"  Oh, sweet Abby.  Little did we know....

Butterfiles

were

EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!

When we entered the giant plant-filled room, it was like walking into a swarm of butterflies.  It took a minute to get used to it, I kept dodging and squealing and pointing and laughing.  It was really amazing.  Then, while we were oohing and ahhing at all the pretty butterflies, Sylvia made a new friend:

The lady who let us in the door took one look at Sylvia's outfit and said, "Oh my.  The butterflies will LOVE that yellow!"  And sure enough, they did.  The one in the picture above stayed on her head as we walked around.  It was not interested in leaving, and it was probably a little upset that the yellow bow wasn't putting out any nectar.  Silly butterflies.  It didn't take long for another butterfly to be all, "Hey!  Are you having any luck over there?  Let me help you look for some sugary goodness...."

 

Sylvia's two new friends stuck around for quite a while until they realized that this giant yellow flower is not a flower at all.  I could almost hear them boo and hiss at us as they fluttered away. 

On Easter Sunday, we took Sylvia to church in her adorable Easter dress, but (as I described in my last post), she had a really, really hard time sitting still and staying quiet during mass.  The nerve, right?  She wasn't too concerned with the resurrection of Christ, only that it was NAP TIME and this wooden pew was NOT her bed.  Oops.  After communion, we made a mad dash for the door, but Sylvia figured out that we were trying to pull a fast one, so she punished us by puking all over her dress.  And her jacket.  And her Daddy.  Poor kid.  This would be the second holiday of her life where events became so intense that she had no other way to show her excitement other than to puke.  You know it's not a decent family get together unless a baby pukes.

We went back to Mom's for brunch, at which point Sylvia refused to sleep.  We put her in her clothes from the day before and let her join in the festivities.  The weather was just too rainy for any sort of games outside, so we stayed on the porch swing and took a few pics.

Here she is with cousin Charlie.  Apparently they called each other and coordinated their outfits.  Way to go, kids.

Another family photo.  We clean up pretty nice, don't we?  It's not often you find me in a pink sweater AND my husband in a pink tie, so I'm glad we have this evidence that we do, in fact, own nice clothes.

And this final photo is begging for a caption contest!  I can't give anything away, but I can give a cyber high-five to my favorite entry.   The look on Sylvia's face is priceless.  I expect to see a lot of this circa 2015.

The Game Changer

We listened to this pretty decent radio show on the way to church this morning that helped me put Easter in perspective.  And I always welcome a nice dose of perspective, don't you?  We tuned in halfway through an interview with a guy....who wrote a book....about Jesus or something?  I'm really not sure who he was, but he was talking about Easter and Jesus and why he (the author) was led to Him (Jesus).  He said one, tiny, little thing that really stuck to me.  I'm totally paraphrasing here, but he said something like, "Well, in other religions, the prophets never claimed to be anything more than profits.  But in Christianity you have this very compelling figure who claims to be God's True and Only Son.  And the claim itself is not all that compelling, but his resurrection is what draws people in.  It's what makes people think there must be something to this claim.  For Christians, the rising is a game changer."

Ha!  I loved that, because it's true.

I struggle, folks.  I struggle with my Christianity and my faith.  But I have no doubt in my mind that Jesus is a total game changer.  He definitely, absolutely changed the world.  And he continues to change it every day.  So the radio guy really gave me something to think about while my child was screaming and crying through the homily at mass, refusing to sit still or cooperate for one little second, preventing me (or anyone within a twenty foot radius of me) from listening to anything the priest was saying.  As I tried desperately to wrangle my greased pig, I just kept repeating to myself, "Today, the game has changed.  Today, the game has changed!  Hallelujah!"

Happy Easter!

Today, Sylvain and I decided to stay home instead of going up to Mom's and Grandma's for Easter like we've done every year.  I'm sad that we won't see our family one more time before the baby comes, but I'm so glad we were able to go to our own church for Easter Mass this morning.  I just wanted to hop on here to post the words of a song we sang this morning that made me cry as I thought about our little one on the way and the purpose of this beautiful day:

We want to thank you, to sing your praises, to learn to call you by your living name.
We long to see you, to feel your presence, to sing your glory in our lives through all our days.

It's like they chose that song for me to sing to Jesus AND our little girl at the same time!  We are so ready for her to get here.  I prayed my little heart out this morning that she would arrive soon. 

Have a beautiful Easter, everyone!