Easter Sunday!

The big three woke up Sunday morning to a yard full of treats from the Easter Grandpa.  :)

I asked them to stand over there so I could take a picture, and they all three faced away from me.  Ha!

There was chocolate on Daddy’s car!

Having a conversation:

They were always putting things in each other’s baskets – such sweet sharers.

James’ little giraffe basket filled up pretty fast, and he had to switch over to his bunny bag that he made at school. :)

Back inside, I let the kiddos eat half of their chocolate egg and the Peep inside… before breakfast!  Best mom ever.

I’m pretty sure they’ve never had so much chocolate in one sitting before.

The babies slept through all of that fun.  I wouldn’t have let them eat chocolate for breakfast anyway.

We got all dressed up and stopped by Gran and Grandpa David’s house for some roses.

We arrived after the 9:40 service had started, so Matt dropped me and the big kids off while he found a parking spot.

Pretty roses from Gran’s bushes!

James wanted the biggest rose.

I delivered the children to their Sunday school classes and then watched them come to the flower cross.

Joanna:

James:

Natalie:

She’s got some great expressions.  :)

Even though they came at three different times, they all put their roses very close to each other.

We dropped off the babies in the nursery at some point so they could hopefully have a little nap, and we took the bigs to worship in the Sanctuary at 11:00.

Natalie was throwing a bit of a fit about something and didn’t want to go up for the children’s sermon.  Rev. Judy saw her and beckoned Natalie to sit with her.  Natalie was pretty happy about that, and it cured whatever she was mad about.

You can see James listening to Rev. Ellen:

Rev. Ellen passed out some eggs with critters (that come from eggs) in them, talking about new life and birth and how eggs relate to what we celebrate at Easter.  Joanna is opening her egg with a lizard in it here:

And then we may have snuck out of the service because the best time for taking pictures in front of the flower cross is while everybody’s in church.  :)

This next one is my favorite of the kids as far as composition and lighting and bokeh and who knows what else. But James and Natalie’s faces aren’t the best.

So I took eight million and am posting several here because when you have many children, they all look best in different pictures.  And I like all of these for different reasons.  I may have to see if I can figure out how to swap out a head or two here and there.  :)

And then the kiddos really started to look sweet and at the camera, but PEOPLE began walking in the background.  (Only kidding of course!)

Then I had Matt take some of me with the kiddos.  I’m going to pretend he was trying to be artistic with the crooked photo here, instead of just not paying attention.  Ha!

I look so sweet above with my brood, but I’m sure this is how my face usually is:

I can’t even remember why I was making it.  :) But the boys look super cute!

It was a beautiful Sunday to celebrate our risen Savior!  And it sure felt nice not to have any responsibilities in the service, to just be able to worship with my family.  Then we had a super low key afternoon, much of it spent enjoying the lovely day in the backyard.  Happy Easter friends!