Celebrating Easter

This Easter was sooo different from the last. Last Easter, we left the hospital after a 2-day visit when I slipped on our stairs and dropped Parker. He was only five weeks old and had a skull fracture as a result of the fall. There is no doubt that that was the worst day of my life so far, and the resulting guilt and emotional pain that followed was horrible and really changed me. We missed church that morning and came home after lunchtime with an unbearable amount of anxiety and worry about our precious baby boy's well-being. The days and weeks and even months that followed were horrible for me, but thankfully, Parker really was okay and we both healed relatively quickly.

Celebrating Easter this year was so, so different. We woke up and put our "Sunday-best" on to gather with the rest of our congregation and worship the risen Lord! There is something about Easter that always makes me feel fresh and renewed--spiritually and mentally. It's so exciting to attend church and sing and celebrate!

We ate lunch with Ryan's family after church and I am SO upset that we did not take any pictures! We brought our camera but did not remember to take it out of the car. We will have to have a photo-taking session with everyone soon.

After lunch, we came home and put Parker down for a nap. Ryan and I decided that we would take a "quick nap," too, and we all ended up sleeping for almost two hours! I guess we needed it, but I felt like we slept the whole afternoon away. Wait--we did. Oh well, it was a lazy Sunday!

Once we were all awake again, we headed to Omi and Opa's for our weekly Sunday dinner. We let him go through his basket the Easter bunny brought when we first arrived at their house. He definitely was not interested in looking through the basket at all, but we were able to distract him with specific items that came from the basket. That Easter bunny SURE did do a great job!

Parker's thinking, "Wow, Momma..that looks like a lot of work. I just want to go play!"

This spinny-light-egg thingy was his favorite.

He also thoroughly enjoyed the bubbles.

After we ate dinner, we all went outside to let Parker "look" for eggs the Easter bunny hid in the yard. He must have known that Parker really wouldn't know how to look for eggs because he just put about five or six out in the grass in plain sight. This was so so so fun and something I've been looking forward to all year.

He definitely needed some guidance in letting go of the eggs to drop them into the basket.

.....and then he discovered that the eggs were breakable. Egg-smashing ensued.

There were hard-boiled eggs in various states of demolotion.

Notice Ryan's new hair-do? He's growing it out so that he can comb it over to the side...but it's NOT A COMB-OVER. :)

After the egg-hunting and lots of running around, we took a few fam photos.

This is how all family photos start out, right? Thank goodness for digital cameras.

Much better--four generations!

Parker, Granddaddy and Grammie

This is Parker and his Honey-bunny, as I like to call it. This was the bunny his his basket from Honey and Granddad, and he just loves it!

After this long and amazingly fun day, we went home and put the little man to bed--it seemed like he walked more that day than he had walked over the course of his whole life! I can't wait to do it again next year. Oh and also......................

We got this--probably our best family picture yet. All looking, ALL SMILING, no weird faces--finally!