Easter Weekend!

After a LOT of debating, we finally decided to stay at home this Easter weekend!  Chris had his porch project to work on, we had lots of fun Egg Hunts and friends to hang out with near home, and we ALSO would have the privilege of dog-sitting our horse/dog of a nephew, Tanner, if we stayed home!  My entire family was in Savannah for the weekend and I thought I would have a hard time being the only one left out, but it was totally fine and we had a FABULOUS family and friends weekend at home!  I love starting new traditions with our little family.... more on that in a minute.  Below is our dog/horse nephew, Tanner.  He is not allowed on the couch at his house, so he takes full advantage of being allowed to get on ours.  Spoiled.  Rotten.

This was him while I was trying to nurse Caroline... he likes the Boppy more than she does!

Another wonderful thing about our sweet nephew is that he likes to wake up at an hour I didn't know existed.  Caroline has been sleeping through the night since she was like 5 weeks old  (thank you Moms on Call) so I truly forgot what it was like to wake up when it's still dark.  I was HAPPY to text this picture of the clock to Whitney (hoping to wake her up) when Tanner woke us up to go outside.  At. 4. 0. 7. A. M. Then, I didn't even really get my satisfaction because Whitney and Doug were up with a teething baby at that point as well.  Oh well.

 We keep Jack's pillow upstairs so when Tanner visits he is very excited to have a pillow downstairs, too! Thankfully, Tanner doesn't mind sharing!

Chris and I have been visiting First Baptist Church in Cumming and were so excited that they were having a fun family day for all the preschool-aged kiddos on Saturday!  They had an egg hunt for all the different age groups, face painting, cookie decorating, jumpy houses, and fun praise music.  

This kid LOVES jump houses!

He was NOT too sure about the bunny!

But he was happy to take a picture as long as daddy was near by!

Waiting for the Egg Hunt to begin!

GO!

Park has been ALL about daddy lately! He couldn't wait to have his picture taken with daddy!

He was NOT as excited to have a picture with me though...

When we asked Parker what he wanted painted on his face, he so excitedly said, "A FLOWER A FLOWER!"  Chris shot that down pretty quickly and said, "How about a tiger!"  He said that would be OK!  The lady painting his face asked if he would sit still for long enough - and we said we'd find out!  He did fabulous!  Sat still the entire time!

I promise he wasn't being tortured.

 Checking out himself in the mirror!  He even gave the artist a little ROAR!

Enjoying his cookie he decorated!

I should have taken this before the face paint!  Oh well!

Just the GIRLS - the area around the church is absolutely beautiful! 

One last picture before nap time when I washed it all off!

Saturday, after nap time, we invited Sisi and her family over to make Resurrection bread!  Park's Sunday School teacher gave me a hand out with this idea on it!  You take biscuit dough and put a marshmellow inside... you explain to the kids that the marshmallow is Jesus' body after he died on the cross.  THEN - after you bake the biscuits, the marshmallow OOZES out and fills up the inside of the bread!  It actually leaves a big, giant hole when you open up the bread - which represents the empty tomb after Jesus raised from the dead!

Park and Sisi enjoying their yummy bread!  After our bread fun, we enjoyed a yummy pasta dinner Amy brought over for us!  We literally were laughing the entire time, because there was NOT more than 1 minute where all 4 adults were sitting at the table together.  Between SiSi potty training and announcing she had to PEE every few minutes, Parker running around, Caroline crying or Dylan fussing... we all managed to finish our meal in about an hour! 

I promise Caroline loves Sisi - this girl can give a LOOK though - watch out!

Easter morning was lots of fun!  We had both kid's baskets hidden and there was a trail of eggs leading from Parker's room to his basket!  A few eggs were demolished before Parker could even get to them thanks to Tanner stepping on them and crushing them to pieces...

 Aunt Whitney came to the rescue with monogrammed Easter baskets for the kiddos!  She did a great job picking them out for me!  She's the best.  Thanks Aunt Nit-ney!

We let Parker have one piece of candy from his basket before church/breakfast!  He was way excited!

 

We had an amazing time on Easter morning at First Baptist Church!  We have recently started to attend there after attending Mountain Lake for nearly 3 years.  We have been looking for something a little closer to what Chris and I both grew up with.  We both grew up in a southern Baptist church that had Wednesday night activities for the kids and adults, Sunday School, and a little more traditional-styled worship.  Easter was our second time visiting and we loved it!  After church, we had planned a BIG lunch with all our closest friends from Mountain Lake who were in town without family visiting.  I was so excited to finally use our dining room AND I used my Fine China for the first time ever!  (5 years... about time, right?)

Our family on Easter!

Kristin and Tyler couldn't join us for Easter dinner but they were able to stop by before meeting their family for a "kid and mommy" photo!  Here is one of our last "baby belly" pictures...

Yes - I'm wearing the same dress!  Yay for being able to use non-maternity dresses during and after pregnancy!  :)

Caroline - 4 months.  Tanner - 5 months.  Caleb - 6 months.  Dylan - 7 months!

After lunch, we had a fun Easter Egg Hunt for Parker and SiSi!  This was Park's 3rd hunt and he was a little "over it".  A few minutes into the hunt, he said he wanted me to pick up the eggs.... Ha!

 So I, of course, did.  Who could resist these baby blues!