I’m not going to lie, Easter was a little bit chaotic this year.

We got going on so much other stuff leading up to the big day that we ended up scrambling to squeeze all the finishing touches in at the last minute.

Which is crazy because THIS was the year I started early.

I read “A Christ-Centered Easter” in it’s entirety.

I had plans. Big ones.

Maybe that’s why I was grouchy when it came to the actual day. I planned too big and too fancy. I volunteered to teach a lesson at church which took a long time to prepare (and ended up kinda flopping), and Dave had to be one of the speakers which always causes a little stress (he was amazing), and we waited ’til the last minute to do our favorite egg coloring stuff.

I’m not saying we didn’t have a great Easter. I mean, how can Easter not be great…especially when you look back at pictures like this:I just wish I would have slowed down and soaked in the moments a little bit more.
I love how excited our kids get about painting eggs.
The girls were enamored by my butterfly:This one’s kinda blurry but we tried the rubber-band-before-you-dip-in-egg-dye trick:
We liked it.

Lu mostly painted her arms and dress.
But she was in hog-heaven getting free-reign of the paint.Grace created some serious polka-dot masterpieces.
Max was there…Dave too…just weren’t too into the creative painting stuff. Max was more into that shrink-wrap stuff.In lieu of the Easter Story Cookies this year we opted for the Resurrection Rolls everyone told me about in this post. (Thanks for the tip…they lived up to their delicious expectations.)

We made sugar cookies for the Young Women:
And the Easter Bunny did his traditional string from the end of the kids’ beds leading to their baskets. This is how it looked when we went to bed:
We snapped a few pictures before we left for our cute nephew’s missionary farewell at 8:00 (it was a beautiful service).
The Easter egg hunt waited ’til after church:
I love that my brother lives close-by.
We were there too…just in the background…

We met up with all the cousins for Easter dinner that evening.This is how Lu spent much of the weekend:
…waiting for an older sibling to hide an egg or two and then she was in Heaven trying to find them.

It was a beautiful Easter. I think with the family scripture study of all the events surrounding Easter that we did leading up to Easter, our Family Home Evening lesson and all the symbolism we talked about throughout the week the kids really caught the real meaning of Easter and had fun too.

But I don’t know that we need to cram in quite so much other fluff. Next year we’ll re-evaluate. But for now, I love looking at these pictures of another beautiful year celebrating one of the most important things in history. I’m so grateful for a holiday to reflect on the fact that Jesus Christ lives. And that He loves us so much.

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24 Comments

  1. Looks like you've built another year of great memories 🙂 Sometimes things just work out the way they are meant to, even with all of our planning getting in the way. Love the pics 🙂 Happy Easter, Shawni!

  2. Looks like fun! How did the string tradition start?

    I'll confess, I taught a Relief Society lesson on Easter Sunday that I thought was a total flop. When I saw the lesson schedule earlier in the year, I was nervous about having an Easter lesson. I have some pretty tender feelings when it comes to the resurrection, and I hate to cry in front of people. But, turned out the lesson was on a conference talk that had very little to do with traditional Easter themes. It seemed to be a pretty straightforward topic, too. Oh my goodness, though, I had no idea it would be such a controversial topic! Seriously, any lesson on prayer that gets RS ladies hot around the collar is pretty much a flop.

    Bet your lesson wasn't as much a flop as you thought!

  3. Absolutely love your Easter pics. The string thing is such a cute idea. I'm inspired. I really enjoy reading your blog. It's such a great encouragement for this mother's everyday mundane!

  4. You are making such fun memories with your family!! Love it! Oh, and congratulations on being named National Mother of the Year!!! I was so excited for you when I saw that….you are soooo deserving of it!

  5. Congratulations on being named National Young Mother of the Year! I'm so happy for you, and it looks like a fantastic Easter! 🙂

  6. Looks like it was great fun! This is kind of a strange question to throw in here, but Why doesn't little Lucy wear glasses? Will it not help with her vision?

    Happy Easter!

  7. All the way from New Zealand I just saw on another blog you were named Young Mother of the Year. Congratulations. It's always a wonderful feeling to be acknowledged for the work we just get on and do as Mothers. Well deserved. Catherine

  8. Oh my goodness Shawni! I just saw that you are national mother of the year! How exciting! And how deserving! So happy for you! Miss you guys. 🙂 Darcy In CA

  9. Love the family pictures! And "you in the background" – that is so how it feels, doesn't it? What kinds of paints did you use? We used watercolor paints this year, plus the traditional dye. Just curious…

  10. i found your blog from stephanie waite's- congratulations on young mother of the year!

    your kids are beautiful (and so were the Easter eggs) 🙂

  11. you don't know me, but i love looking at your blog. ocasionally of course…not stalker-ish 🙂 i love your pictures, they are what bring me back again, and again. anyway, i have been meaning to ask about the picture above your fireplace. where did you get it? i love it!

  12. Congratulations! A little bird just told me that you were awarded the NATIONAL Young Mother of the Year. She said your speech was wonderful. I wondered if you would consider posting it? As you well know, we can use a little inspiration wherever we can find it. Will you share some of yours?

  13. Thanks for the great posts and fun blog…as a mom its so nice and refreshing to hear real life stories from other moms! We also tried the Christ centered Easter two years ago for the first time and realized we needed to modify it to actually have time to enjoy things. So we pick and chose what works each year, this year we didn't do as much as we were really busy with the ward and school. Its nice to just keep the focus on the Savior, the article in the Friend was helpful and summed up the life of the Savior wonderfully, and do the rest as a "spring" type holiday. Thanks again, can't wait to be in Utah and read your book!

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