Easter in an Eggshell

 

We enjoyed a beautiful Easter weekend combined with General Conference.  Like most days we tried to squeeze a little too much into the day and ended up scrambling to go from a baptism to a neighborhood Easter egg hunt and arrived just in time to see the last of the eggs getting scooped up.  Oh well, we'll try to be on time next year.  Emma had had enough of the frantic moment but Noah was willing to stop and let me take a picture of the failed attempt.  We can't only document the wins here! 

The night before Easter Sunday Emma reflected on how much she loves this holiday.  "It's not as huge of deal as Christmas, but it's way bigger than St. Patrick's Day.  It's just the right amount of celebrating.  Of course, if we didn't have Easter we wouldn't have Christmas and if we didn't have Christmas we wouldn't have Easter, so it all works out!" 

And we did have a great time celebrating!  There were lots of new places to look for baskets and the beautiful eggs we decorated that were hidden around our new house, and the kids found everything eventually.  They all remembered the books that came last year and were excited to see what would be in their baskets this year.  Once Noah found the latest Dog Man book he was done searching for eggs.  

The weather has been exceptional this year, and for the first time since we've lived in Iowa the Easter Bunny hid some of the eggs outside!

There were even some giant eggs hidden that turned out to be from Grandma!  What an extra treat!

Once we were back inside we prepared Resurrection rolls 

and enjoyed a delicious breakfast, watched more uplifting sessions of conference, and all around enjoyed the chance to celebrate the Atonement, death, and resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ.  

I didn't take any more pictures after breakfast, but we had a great time watching conference and were only temporarily disheartened when not one of the 20 new temples announced are going to be in Iowa.  We had our bishop's family over for Easter dinner and enjoyed getting to know them a little better.  

While the days always seem to race by, I keep thinking that things should be happening faster- the buds on the trees should be leaves by now, the projects we've started should be done by now, the people that we're meeting should be friends by now, and surely the imperfections we're all working on should be perfect by now. But I'm grateful for each new day and the chances we get to make little steps toward what and who our Savior knows we can be.  And that is just a piece of what Easter is all about!