Easter

I was a little sad heading into Easter this year. Since Andy stepped away as pastor of Hope Moravian, some of our traditions have been altered. We've been doing our own home church services the past few months, which I have really enjoyed. But I wanted Easter morning to feel more special than the five of us sitting around the living room in our pajamas. Andy suggested we visit a church in Shelbyville, but that didn't really appeal to me. In addition to the celebration of Easter, part of the joy is sharing in that celebration with our church family. We have visited Hope Moravian a few times since Andy's last Sunday, but he felt a little uncomfortable attending there on Easter (which I totally get). Long story short, we found a compromise where we still had our own church service, but everyone dressed up and we included some favorite Easter songs into the morning. It actually ended up being a really nice time together. 

Once we got changed out of our nice clothes, I made brunch for everyone. No pictures from that. Another tradition that changed this year was no Easter Egg Hunt. Our old yard was huge and offered several places to hide eggs. Our new yard is tiny and it just wouldn't be the same. Thankfully, Mimi Jane sent me a video of a fun Easter activity and we did that instead. Each circle in the muffin tin represented an egg with a prize inside. Some of the prizes were various amounts of money, some were gift cards, and a few were candy. The goal was to land a ping pong ball in one of the spaces. The cup at the very end with the gold egg and bunny was the grand prize of $50. This ended up being pretty competitive and a lot of fun.  

We took a brief intermission from our game because we had a baptism to attend. Curtis's friend, Aiden, wanted to get baptized on Easter and he wanted Andy to baptize him. It was a really special moment to be a part of. 

Afterward, we returned home and resumed our game! 

The winner of the grand prize and the golden bunny was Curtis! 

This year, the kids hid each other's baskets. Graydon had it the most challenging since his basket was in the garage. 

We followed that up with some tennis. The day was supposed to be rainy, but it ended up pretty nice. 

For a holiday that I looked ahead to with a little bit of sadness, it ended up being a day filled with many joys. I felt so thankful at the end of it.