Easter Weekend

3 weeks ago we celebrated Easter Sunday, one of my favorite Sundays of the whole year! I always look forward to the renewed excitement the church feels as we celebrate the resurrection and anticipate the Saviors return. I mean, we carry this with us throughout the year, but the expression of it on Easter always makes Heaven seem a little closer.

I was afraid we weren't going to make it to church Easter morning because Reaghan got sick in the middle of the night and woke up in a mess of her own throw up. I had a feeling it was just from the treats she had eaten at her Grammie and PopPops {we had spent all day Saturday there} but I wanted to be sure it wasn't anything more. Thankfully after I got her all washed up and back in bed with Mark and I she was fine and never showed another sign of feeling bad. We skipped Sunday school  to give her time to make sure her breakfast was going to stay down just in case so I got to enjoy a lazy morning in bed with all my favorite people before getting up to get ready.




Of course I bought the girls matching dresses... Lilly is pretty much a pro at timing her spitting up to right after I get her dressed and/or prop her up for a picture... thus the wet mark on the front of her sweater ; )

We put together little Easter baskets for the girls that included, you guessed it, matching outfits. ; )

After church celebration we headed over to my parents house for some family time and tried to get a few more pictures before lunch. The timing was a bit off for Lilly here... nap trumps photos when you're 2 months old. And Reaghan... well Reaghan is 2. Also Mark... Mark changed because he wasn't aware I wanted to take pictures. Big fat family photo fail. 

 

Lilly eventually woke up and became a ham and Reag broke out her modeling skills.

My parents we so sweet and got Reaghan a little Easter basket again this year, 

(You'll be included next year Lil!) and gave her a dainty cross necklace {that she loves to wear to church on Sunday's now} and a sweet little prayer box.

After lunch we all changed and hid and re-hid Easter eggs {and then re-hid them like 5 more times} for Reaghan to find. It was her first time and she LOVED it. 

The loot.

This kid made out. I hope she enjoyed her year of being the only grandkid to be spoiled!

Pop-pop and Uncle Adam were on baby duty while the hunting of eggs was taking place.

My parents did a fun adult easter egg hunt and hid a $20 in one egg and a $5 in another and let the big kids search the yard for a little healthy family competition. Nothing says celebrating the Risen Savior like a sibling battle in the front yard for a golden egg, eh?

 I kid.

We actually have extra reason to celebrate and meditate on the cross and the hope of reconciliation it brings this year.

If you're wondering why its taken me 3 weeks to write about our Easter its because we've had some hard days in our family recently and I never know quite how to handle that when it comes to this blog. Do I share or not share? I'm a firm believer that not everything needs to be shared, but since I use this blog as a journal of sorts I hate continuing to write on as if certain things never happened, especially when they carry so much weight. This sometimes leads to extended periods of silence here on the blog. I feel like I have to acknowledge some things before I can move on and write about normal life. So.... you see this picture here? The one below?

Someone special is missing. Someone we love and miss.

Someone who is choosing the wide path instead of the narrow, and trading light for darkness.

Someone who chose not to celebrate our Savior on Easter with her family.

Boy do we miss her and ache for her to come back to us.

If you think of her, would you pray for her?

Would you pray for us?

We know there is always hope for reconciliation and forgiveness because of what Christ did on the cross for us, and even more because he rose again 3 days later. 

We know that there is nothing too dirty that can't be made worthy. No ashes that can't be turned into beauty. No chain that can't be broken.

That is the hope of Easter. The reason we celebrate.

"For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.  And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. 

Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 

2nd Corinthians 5:14-21