My Easter Bunnies

Easter weekend, as always was wonderful! We were blessed this year to have General Conference the same weekend. For those who don't know, General Conference occurs twice a year (April and October) on the first weekend of the respective months. In two-two hours sessions, both on Saturday and Sunday, members of our church have the opportunity to hear from Church leaders and our prophet. Conference is always very spiritually uplifting and provides guidance and counsel from our leaders. This year, I think, was especially profound. Much of the focus was on raising children, our roles as parents and strengthening our families. As a stay-at-home mom, so much of what was said seemed as if it were being said just for me. I'm sure many others felt the same way.

These were all so cute, I had to post them all!

It was wonderful to have our whole family home together, focusing on each other and the Easter holiday. But, of course, what would Easter be without some basic traditions. For the first time in Ava's life, we decorated Easter eggs with her friend A.J. . I'm not sure why it's taken me four years to actually do this with her, but it has. She loved it, and of course focused most of her attention on the pink and purple dye.

Saturday she and I made our traditional conference weekend cinnamon rolls. Oh so good, but oh so bad!

Sunday morning the kids woke up extra early, Ava came into my room basket in hand, ready to go hunting for eggs. Fortunately, the Easter bunny had the foresight to only hide the eggs inside since we got hit with snow during the night. The kids spent all of five minutes searching for the eggs before finding them all. I swear, Ava has eyes like a hawk. The Easter Bunny decided it would be best to only include candy in some of the eggs, since the kids have a mom with strict sugar rules. He filled most of them with money (coins) which the kids LOVED! However, I can't say they weren't excited to see candy in their eggs too. Jax, knowing very well that I wouldn't let him eat it ALL, would open a candy-filled egg and frantically shovel as many jelly beans as he could in his mouth before I could get the egg away from him. Or, he'd run off, a piece of candy in each hand, taking bites and chewing like a mad dog to get it down.

We, of course had the opportunity to discuss the real story of Easter. Ava knew the story of the Resurrection very well, so it was fun to see her get so excited to tell it to Jax. Truly, a wonderful weekend! The only thing that would have made it better would have been some sunshine!