Easter Celebrations

Last Saturday, I took all our kids (ALL of them, all 9) to our church's Easter egg hunt extravaganza.

The egg hunts were pretty crazy. The weather was gorgeous and our church had a great turnout, so there were an incredible number of egg hunting kids.  It was like a swarm of locusts picking up eggs.  They sensibly divided the hunt by ages.  Miriam and Angela only got a few eggs, Sarah and Daniel got quite a few (because there weren't as many kids) and Rose could have made out like a bandit, except she didn't care.  WHY would I want these stupid plastic eggs, seemed to be her question.

Bouncy house was fun.

         We got home to find Kevin knee deep in home improvement and repair products, and this lovely fruit bouquet that Kevin's mother sent us.

         The next day was Easter, and we didn't go to church.  Easter is the most popular day in the whole year to go to church, and we are always intimidated with huge crowds and a packed parking lot (especially with a 15 passenger van to find space for.)  So we stayed home and most of the kids watched "The Miracle Maker", a fabulous claymation movie about Jesus's life.  

      Kevin's mom and our niece came for Easter dinner, which worked out well as our niece had to head back to college mid afternoon.  After a scrumptious lunch, the children had another egg hunt courtesy of their grandmother and cousin.  

     The weather was absolutely lovely and they had a fantastic time. And thanks to their relatives' hard work, they each had lots of candy and eggs.

    On a serious note, I've realized that I am not really much of a "holiday" person. I know that God gave the Israelite's holidays as part of their worship, and I totally love Christmas and Easter for Christians to think about Jesus' birth and death and resurrection.  I think it is great that we have special times of the year to focus on specific aspects of our Christian faith. But I find that my own spiritual journey ties into daily life events more than the Christian calendar.  God uses things like pregnancy and childbirth and crazy toddlers and work problems and financial decisions to teach me what I need to know. Right now I'm in this amazing season of life where I am aware, as I never have been before, how much the Lord loves me just the way I am.  He really does. So while I know church is precious and I enjoy and relish and value going, I'm also realizing that on those weekends when we have sick children, or an Easter when the kids are excited about candy and spending time with Grandma and their only female cousin, it is fine to stay home.  So we did. And it was good.