Easter

The morning began early with the sunrise service. Even earlier for the kids who were helping with the breakfast afterward. It was a rainy Easter this year. Easter should never be rainy. Typically, we go outside to the oldest part of the cemetery for the second half of the Easter sunrise service, but we had to stay inside this year. Not quite the same, but getting wet and muddy wouldn't have been great either. After all the services were over, we got some family photos at home. 

Here is the winner for best photo of the three kids. 

With all of them being older now, able to look at the camera and smile on command, you'd think this would be a relatively quick process. But alas, there were still many outtakes! 

Bella took a few of me and Andy. 

The boys. It wasn't until long after when I realized Bella and I should have taken one together. And wow. . . the boys have really gotten taller than Andy! 

I always love a good family photo and can't resist getting one when everyone is all dressed up. Thankfully, my family puts up with this for me. 

We did our egg hunt a little differently this year. For one thing, it was raining. And the other is that at least one of the kids is feeling a little too old for looking around the yard for eggs. Fair enough. Since two of the kids still wanted to do it, we just made some adjustments. The eggs were hidden in the kitchen and living room and we did a Scrambled Egg Hunt. Inside the eggs were individual letters for three prizes. The big prizes were a $15 Target gift card, $20 cash, and $25 TJ Maxx gift card. Each kid was allowed to find six yellow eggs that each contained a letter then, one at a time, they'd open an egg and place the letter on the word for one of the prizes. Whoever placed the final letter on a prize word won that prize and were out. Curtis ended up winning the TJ Maxx gift card, Graydon won the $20, and Bella won the $15 Target gift card. 

In addition to the letters, the other eggs and a number (1-23). Each number represented an order that they could pick prizes from the prize table. Here were the prizes they could choose from. 

Curtis ended up with numbers 1, 2, AND 3 (plus a few other numbers), so he got to pick three times in a row right at the beginning. 

He was also the winner of the chocolate bunny and $5 prize. The winner of the chocolate bunny also got to trade one prize at the very end. This guy ended up with all the best prizes, so there wasn't really much he wanted to trade for at the end; though I do think he traded one of his dollars for one of Graydon's snacks. All in all, a very successful egg hunt for Curtis! 

But the other two got some pretty good stuff too, so no one was too upset. 

Instead of baskets, we just had a wrapped gift for each of them. 

Curtis opened up some basketball training equipment.

Bella got a Yeti mug and some dorm dishes from her Amazon wish list. 

And Graydon, our weightlifter, got some 30 pound dumbbells. 

I made us a simple Easter meal and, by the end of the day, the weather improved; so we all went to the tennis courts to his some balls around. I'm (slowly) starting to learn how to play. It was a great family day together.