Just about 4 1/2 months ago it was Easter time, but like with all of my other scattered post I figure now is as good of a time as any. I have all of these pictures I want to always have, and I like many other moms am terrible about getting them printed out. I have over 550 pictures on my phone now, and that's only a couple months after transferring over 1,000 onto my computer. I'm not sure I could afford to print them all out! Anyhow even though its almost September we are taking a stroll through part of our April.
Have I mentioned just how much I love our ward, but not only that but our church?! For those of you who don't know, my family and I are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints. Also known as LDS or Mormon. Why do I bring this up? Well for a couple reasons actually.
First, celebrating Easter has a lot to do with celebrating Christ our savior and his sacrifice he made for all of us. There are just so many things that could be said about that alone. No matter how long I have been in the church I always learn more about the savior and it never ceases to amaze me how much we are loved.
Second, having Casey in the military has moved us far from friends and family and the things we were used to. Having to adjust in life is hard sometimes, but moving somewhere new and completely foreign can shake your world a little. Luckily for us, no matter where Casey ever gets assigned or where we end up moving, the church and the gospel is the same. You have new friends and family wherever you go, people who value the same values and beliefs as you. Which is huge!!! We moved almost 900 miles away from home, but that first Sunday in church we were surrounded by a new ward family that was willing to love us and take us in. You don't get that anywhere else.
Lastly, for today, I love all of the fun ward activities. There is nothing better than bringing my kiddos up around people I know and love. One of these activities was our ward Easter breakfast/egg hunt. We got to our ward just before breakfast and so my girls and I took a few fun pictures and enjoyed talking to our friends and neighbors there.
My girls and I! Dad was at work so we had to go without him.
After breakfast we got ready to go and hunt eggs! They were both so excited to go and get candy.
Ready...set....
GO!
They had so much fun! We went back inside for a moment after this and each of the girls decided they wanted to give the missionaries in our ward a couple eggs each. I was happy to have them willing to share, and also happy for less candy in my house!
In our 8 1/2 years of marriage we have never dyed eggs together as a family. I know its crazy! We wanted to try it out this year, but without the conventional dyes. I really dislike food dye! I totally spaced getting anything or even looking into it until like the day before so we weren't very prepared. I found powdered beets and turmeric to try and dye these eggs.
Dad got the girls ready with their aprons on.
Then he decided to not let me take a good picture of him...
We got everything all set up like they said online and we tried it all out. The yellow came out great! Our beets on the other hand did not want to make any difference on those egg shells. We put a couple in this bowl and and covered it with a lid to weigh it down, then stuck it in the fridge overnight to see if it would help. The girls anxiously awaited seeing if it worked, but sadly it didn't do a thing. Needless to say this mama has a bit more research to do next year beforehand.
We died our eggs the night before Easter, so shortly after dying the eggs the girls went to bed and the "Easter bunny" came.
We like to try and do at least half gospel related stuff and then maybe a few fun little things that aren't. This year they got a new coloring pad that has a picture of Christ on it that they like to color in during church, a picture of the prophet and the temple, and then little temple stickers in some of the eggs.
Riley found her basket in the coat closet!.. (while still eating her breakfast).
And Tinsley needed a little help finding her basket in the dryer, which the bunny hid kind of hard.
We decided that we didn't want a whole bunch of candy floating around our house, or being inhaled by our children, so we put a few dollar bills in a couple of their eggs. They were not at all disappointed! Parent win!
This is their little notepad they got!
Not only did the Easter bunny come, but so did gifts from grandparents! Grandma Ahn sent the girls some play dough (which they still play with), a treat bag and a little ducky. They loved it!
Then Grandma and Grandpa Ballatore sent them a puzzle, doodle pads and colored pencils. I think its safe to say that all in all they had a pretty good day!
They got sidewalk chalk from EB so they had to bust that out and start making their beautiful works of art.
Not too long after Easter we went up as a family to go and look around the temple grounds. They were beautiful!! All of the flowers and trees were in bloom.
My awesome guy!
After walking the grounds we went up to a beach along the Puget sound that was just north of Seattle.
There was this large bridge you had to cross to get to the beach because railroad tracks separated the parking lot from the beach.
We ended up just walking around and having a good time together. The girls tried to skip rocks with dad, and I just took pictures and enjoyed the decent weather until it was time to leave.
