easter 2014 | part 1

Our Easter week was interesting. Evelyn had bronchitis and double ear infections at the beginning of the week and Blake came down with Hand Foot Disease at the end. So the entire week we were cooped up. I tried really hard to make it festive despite being quarantined to the house, but by the end I was out of motivation and felt kind of blah. I'd like to say that this was an Easter I would not like to repeat for many reasons.

So while it may appear from these photos that we've had a perfect Easter, we haven't.

However, the interesting thing was all of the bad made me really turn to my Savior. And isn't that what Easter is about? That no matter how dark that Friday was (or any bad day we have), Sunday will come (we will have that peace and sunshine again in our lives?)  Sometimes we just have to go through the really bad to more fully enjoy the sunlight. That is what this Easter did for me personally. I came to more fully understand that the Atonement doesn't just help us repent of our sins, but that He knows and has felt every sorrow and heartache we have. We can be enabled through it and that is what makes life beautiful.

Not that life is perfect. But that through the Atonement, it can be perfect through the dark times.

Ok, now for the photos of our festivities:

> Playing with Bunny Ears on one of our many cooped up days:

> We had to miss our city Egg hunt, so I did our own. I put Blake's lunch inside eggs and made him find it.

>We always have pizza on Good Friday and decorate eggs. Since we had already decorated eggs earlier in the week, we had to get out. Blake was still contagious, so we picked up a pizza and went to a soccer field to have a little picnic. We were the only ones there.

> Finding Easter baskets from the Easter Bunny on Saturday

Blake was so fun to watch this year. This was the first holiday I think he has really understood.

> Our Easter Brunch of French Toast, fruit, and hard-boiled eggs (which Blake loved. not from me)

> We had to take our traditional Easter picnic on Saturday. (Can you sense I was really itching to get out?) We went to Tolman Park (our first park of our 14 Parks in 2014 goal). Blake kept wanting to 'pway', but we wouldn't let him get around other kids or near the playground. A big group was doing an egg hunt and they were kind and shared some of the eggs with him. The best photo we could get:



>And not pictured is our Last Supper passover meal we do on Thursdays. Think lentil soup, pita bread, grapes, and olives. Except that Evelyn had the biggest blowout ever right in the middle of it and Blake was being a little pill that night. Real life :)

I'll do the rest in another post!