Easter 2012

What a fun filled week! We had a fantastic Easter party at school followed by a spectacular Easter Egg Hunt that involved 600 candy filled eggs, a soccer field and 30 5 year olds.  It was so stinkin cute!

I found these sweet little crafts for the kids. They love anything with stickers! This is Quinn and her BFF Olivia.

HC doing her craft.

I picked up these cute Jesus Loves Me necklaces. The kids thought they were fancy.

First pic Quinn has ever taken "willingly" with the Easter Bunny.

Ready for the egg hunt!

Add caption

Quinn checking out her stash.



Me with my egg hunters.

 For the past 9 months I have been participating in a Catholic church program called RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults). Although I've gone to Mass most of my life, I never participated in sacraments or took a leap of faith in joining the church. Those of you that know me know that I have pretty liberal social beliefs but fairly conservative political beliefs. I've never really felt like I could become Catholic because of my radical difference in opinion on many factors the church teaches. But as I've grown older and wiser (and with the help of my dear Catholic friends) I've learned that it is okay to have a difference in opinion on some of the teachings of the church. I believe that the Catholic Church is the one true church. I also think that they have some things totally wrong. I'm okay with this now ... so now I'm a full blown, card carrying Catholic:) The Easter vigil ceremony was long but memorable. I was Baptized, received my First Communion and I was confirmed as a Catholic. It was a long road. The funny thing is that I don't feel one bit different. I've always felt like a child of Christ, I have always felt close to God (at least most of my life), I've always felt a deep understanding of the importance of living a good life. But the process is over and I'm officially a Catholic. Fred was my sponsor. He has always played a strong, God-like role in my life so it was only appropriate to have him by my side. I must also mention that we get a pretty big discount now at the girls school! The ceremony was memorable to say the least  - full submersion in the baptismal, dosed in oil from head to toe, lay on the alter face down while they prayed for the saints. It was dark, kind of creepy according to Jamie but a touch beautiful. I might have started the process for the wrong reasons but somewhere along this journey I realized that your faith needs constant attention just like the other relationships in your life. So for the past 9 months I've educated myself on Christianity, prayed in ways I've never prayed before and spent a lot of time strengthening my relationship with God.

Hassie Clare didn't make it through the 3 hour ceremony. It started at 8:30 PM!!!! She looks so beautiful and peaceful in this picture to me.

Although we didn't get home until midnight, the Easter Bunny still made a trip to our house.

Thank goodness the Easter Bunny knew we needed batting helmets and play clothes!

Off to find the stuffed Easter Eggs the Easter Bunny hide in our backyard!

They both found money eggs filled with 5 one dollar bills. On their own, they got a baggie and put some of the money in the bag and asked me to give it to the kids at St. Jude. My heart was swollen with pride.

Afterwards Nana and the girls helped me prepare some food to take for our family Easter celebration.

We ended the day over at Uncle Dave and Aunt Jenny's house. We had a family friendly softball game (Thurman's v. Carroll's v. Hagel's), played the bean bag toss game and ate until we almost popped. It was the perfect Easter afternoon!