Family Fun, Food and Festivities

After church we headed south, to Lovelady, to have lunch and celebrate with my cousin Jody, his wife and girls, my grandma, my aunt, Sarah's family, and my inlaws.  Here's a collage of my favorite pics:

More Easter

After Lucas and my inlaws left for the evening, it was time to get cooking! I made a chocolate cake from scratch, complete with home-made icing.  I also made my signature pasta salad.

After the cooking was done, and Cason was tucked into bed, I began studying for Sunday's Children's Church lesson.  I got a set of the "Ressurection Eggs", which are a great way to tell the story of Easter to young kids.  Each egg has a special surprise inside, which helped to tell about Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.   I got two sets of eggs so that each child could hold one during the story and open it when prompted. 



After we learned about Jesus' resurrection, we colored a picture of the empty tomb and talked more about Jesus ascending into Heaven.

Next, we collected a few rocks for our Easter baskets. Yep, rocks. We talked about how Jesus died for our sins. We talked about what sin was, and some of the kids shared some things that they felt were sins. Things like being selfish, whining, not obeying their parents, and lying were what they named. We then wrote these sins on the rocks with a black marker, since sin makes our hearts black and heavy, and laid them all on the table together. Then, we took the red bandana I had with me, and covered all of the rocks, just as Jesus' red blood covered all our sins! The kids responded so well to this and it really made my heart happy! We all joined hands, prayed, and put the rocks in the baskets so that they could share with their family and friends!



Lucas and Kami



He looks bored!




Coloring their empty tombs after we learned with the Ressurection Eggs

 Once church was over, we had an egg hunt on the church grounds! Here are a few pics:

I just love looking at these pictures. I have two handsome boys if I do say so myself. They had a great time hunting eggs. Lucas is a pro at spotting those hard to find eggs, and Cason loves to do anything outside. He was having a great time running, putting eggs in his basket, and watching the other kids. That is, until this guy showed up:

Kinda freaky lookin', right? Cason definitely thought so, he competley freaked out and would NOT have a thing to do with the ole Easter bunny.

 

Up next: A trip to Lovelady to eat and hunt eggs with family!

Ressurection Weekend

What a fun, three-day weekend! The boys and I did a lot.

Thursday afternoon was filled with their parties at school.  I had to run home before joining them, so I was a little late. By the time I arrived, Cason and the four other toddlers in his class were doing this:



Clean-up was fun!

 After I got Cason cleaned up and re-dressed, we headed to Luke's class for his egg hunt.



Luke, Cody, Paxton, and Vance

We had a game that evening and Lucas was on fire! I lost count of how many runs he had, and he had countless RBI's and got several people out! He almost had a triple out one inning, which was awesome! A double out is pretty cool, too though. We are so proud of him and all the boys on his team. They won 20-10.  A win is always good, but the most important and best part was they played as a team, and learned while having fun!



Our rainbow cakes in a jar were plenty yummy! I took a picture with my phone, but I can't get it to upload. I did post a pic on facebook, so if you are "friends" with me, then you saw them there.


We had plans to dye eggs with friends, but they got sick, so we had to change our plans, but that was ok too.  Lucas, Cason and I colored eggs at home on Saturday.  Lucas is a little on the artsy side (gets that from me) so he really got into it.  Cason, on the other hand, hasn't quite discovered his artistic abilities just yet.  He did paint the eggs and did well with that. He also squished one and launched one across the room which resulted in a nice crackle effect on the paint. Ha! He also decided that the paint looked yummy, so he bit the sponge roller.

After we colored eggs, Papaw and Nana came over !  They had been in Ft. Worth visiting Nannie for a few days so the boys were really excited to see them. (We usually see them at least 2-3 times per week).  And, they brought goodies! They got the boys some really nice clothes, and of course an Easter basket each. 

Lucas asked to go home with them, so we went ahead and gave the boys their baskets from us also.  They were so excited. I made them a basket with a Scentsy buddy and lots of goodies. I made similar baskets for my Scenstsy customers who purchased Buddies for their kids. Lucas kept asking, "Why don't me and Cason get one too?" That made the surprise that much better when he saw that he did get one afterall!

Cason smelling his buddy, "Ribbert". The Scentsy buddies have an opening in their back for a ScentPak.

Cason's basket



Luke's basket

Lucas went home with Papaw and Nana for the evening.  The next morning we had a special Easter lesson during Children's Church. More on that later !  My boys looked SO handsome in their "preacher suits", as Lucas calls them:



If Cason looks a little concerned here, it is because someone dressed
up as the Easter bunny after church and this event  left him somewhat traumatized.
He did not care for the big hairy thing in the polk-a-dot vest.  He is still in recovery mode
in this picture, and keeping his eye on the "EB".

 I will work on a seperate post about our special CC lesson, and more pictures of our Easter celebration!



Short day, Long weekend

I get to leave work at 2:30 today, and don't have to come back until Monday! That is my kind of weekend! Unfortunately, Heath is working ALL weekend and won't be off until Monday, when I go back to work.  But,  the boys and I have several things on the agenda during our time off. So, let's have a list, shall we?

today:

Easter parties at school
tball game

tomorrow:
sleep late
make these:

rainbow cakes in  a jar

ANd, do some of this with our friends Julia, Kalli, and Tyler:



 And, make some of these:

Saturday:
The boys and I are going to a "secret" place to take Spring pictures... I found this sweet little spot this past week and haven't shared it with a soul yet. But, after I take their pictures there I'll gladly share it.  Saturday evening, I'll be cooking  and preparing for my families Easter dinner at my cousin Jody's house.  He and his wife Sarah and their two precious girls live in the house I grew up in and I love going back there for gatherings. 

I will also be preparing an Easter lesson for the kids at church. We are going to use the Ressurection Eggs to tell the Easter story, and also collect ROCKS for their Easter baskets. You heard me right, Rocks. More on that later!

Sunday:
of course, we will go to church and have a small egg hunt on the grounds after services.  After that, we head to Lovelady to that family dinner and egg hunt I mentioned earlier.

So looking forward to a fun filled weekend with my two lovelies! Just wish Daddy wasn't working and could join in on the fun. :(



BIG SAM

You can bet that everytime we travel south, just as we leave Huntsville, Lucas will proclaim " There's BIG Sam!" as we pass the colassal statue of General Sam Houston that joins in with the pine trees that tower over I-45... And, when we are on the way home, coming back into Huntsville, he always says, "Thers BIG Sam, we're almost to Huntsville!"  We have talked all about Big Sam and what it means and who he was, but never once had we stopped by to visit the statue. Not until this weekend, that is. Lucas loved it. He couldn't believe how BIG the BIG Sam really is! (And, you can tell just how BIG he really is in the pictures of Lucas standing at his feet!)

It was a fun little (FREE) outing! We all had a great time and got a little history lesson too.