Easter is Awesome

Before I started recapping our Easter festivities, I went back and looked at my posts from the past several Easters.  Go here and here to see Campbell's first two Easters.  (I might have just cried.)  My little chubby-cheeked baby has definitely turned into a little girl over the past year. 

We had a great Easter three-day weekend.  Seriously, God bless the inventor of the three-day weekend. And oh so timely.  We are coming off a serious four week wave of sickness in our house.  It has been physically exhausting, but even moreso, both Russ and I were feeling disconnected with each other, the Lord, other people, and life in general.  Our weekend was renewing on so many levels.  We spent much of Good Friday hanging out at home, doing a little deep cleaning, and honing our pottying skills with dad's help.  I had a newborn session that afternoon and in the evening we had dinner at my parents with my sister, brother-in-law, niece, and nephew.  We ate, hung out, and dyed Easter Eggs.  Some people (Campbell) may have done some nude egg dying.  She's taking potty training to a new level.

Saturday morning, I had a few family sessions and enjoyed a solo trip to Target to get Easter basket stuff.  We went to lunch and then headed to our church's FIRST Easter Egg Hunt.  Campbell was way excited.  Russ and I were pretty nervous about an outing in panties.

I snapped some pics of the kids before we left.  My kids are very cute and I can generally get cute pictures of them individually, but they are not at ages right now where getting a picture together is easy.  It's a good thing I have a fondness for candids.

Campbell did GREAT with her first big outing sans diapers.  This is in part due to potty I picked up to keep in the back of the car (thank you Angela McClinton for the inspiration).  The only downside was that C was so excited about the novelty of using the potty in the back of the SUV that we stopped along the side of the road and did it multiple times :)  And then in the middle of the Easter Egg Hunt we took various potty breaks.

Campbell LOVED the Easter Egg Hunt.  She has always been a timid girl and lately we have been marveling at how she is becoming so independent.  This is just the kind of thing that would have sent her into a tailspin a year ago, but she ate it up this year.  She makes me so proud.

Talking strategy

Without a doubt, the highlight of our Easter weekend was church on Sunday morning.  (I didn't realize it until just now, but I wrote a very similar thing two years ago about the church service!  While I'm sure it was awesome, it didn't hold a candle to this Easter :). 

Last year on Easter Sunday, my husband and our dear friend, Jordan McClinton, officially took over as worship leaders of The Waters Worship Band - now called Current Worship.  This past year has been one of growth in so many areas for both of them - leadership, hearing God, relationally, balancing time, musically, and various others.  I could not be more proud of my husband or more impressed with God for the transforming work He continues to do in this man I married and continue to love more and more.  Not only was this Easter Sunday a phenomenal time of worship, it was an emotional time for Russ, as he was doing a lot of reflecting about what the Lord has done over the past year.

It was a beautiful time of worshiping the Risen Lord Jesus and acknowledging that although unnecessary, we are being used to bring forth His purposes here on Earth.

We finished out the weekend with family at my parent's house that afternoon.  It was fun and low-key.  I once again faked domestic awesomeness with an amazingly simple baked beans recipe.  Here's the best I could get of the kids before church.

I dare you to tell me you have seen a boy this cute before.