Happy Easter 2011!

This week has been a busy and fun-filled week of Easter activities!

The festivities began Wednesday night when we invited some friends over to dye Easter eggs with us. Katelee had a great time trying out the different colors...

...and decorating the dyed eggs with stickers.

Don't they look pretty?

We also discovered something new this year - Katelee LOVES hard boiled eggs. She's probably eaten 10 of them since we died them Wednesday night. I'll have to hard boil eggs more often!

The Easter bunny visits our house on the Saturday before Easter every year. He makes it interesting by showing up at a different time of day each year. Saturday morning, Katelee put out a plate of carrots for the Easter bunny. She checked on the plate throughout the day so she would know when the Easter bunny had come. ;)

Saturday morning was also our 2nd annual Easter Egg Hunt! We invite any

friends and neighbors to join us. Everyone donates treat-filled eggs toward the hunt; we had a lot of eggs this year! We estimated probably around 800?? Anyway, we filled a couple of laundry baskets - that's a lot of candy!

Our family went out bright and early Saturday morning to place and hide all the eggs and get everything ready for the hunt. Katelee was a huge helper! She has been SO EXCITED all week for the Easter egg hunt! She enjoyed hiding eggs with us, especially in the trees.

We had time before the hunt began to take a few pictures. How many eggs can you find in this picture? I think there are 8...

It was a chilly morning, and Katelee was getting cold by the time we took this picture.

Finally, everyone else arrived and the hunt began! It's hard to take good pictures of kids on a Easter egg hunt - they move too fast! But Gerald managed to get a few decent shots!

Katelee was so proud of the fact that she got 16 eggs! Yay!

Later that afternoon, Katelee burst into our room shouting that the Easter bunny had eaten his carrots!!! We went on the search for her Easter basket. I think the Easter bunny hid it under the desk the past two years, but apparently he started thinking more creatively this year. We found a clue he had left, made from the empty plastic eggs Katelee had in her basket left over from the hunt in the morning.

The clue pointed to Katelee's pink chair.

Behind her chair, Katelee found this!

The first words out of her mouth were: "HE BROUGHT ME THE DUCKY I WANTED! HE BROUGHT ME THE DUCKY I WANTED!"

You see, Katelee owns a lot of stuffed animals. And yes, she loves them and plays with them, but she has a lot. And so I hate getting more stuffed animals. Especially large ones. But recently, while at the store together, Katelee laid eyes on this duck. It was love at first sight. I would not buy it for her, of course, and it was like her best friend had moved out of her life forever.

Well, Katelee kept repeating this story yesterday, and saying, "I guess the Easter bunny knew I saw him and he knew that I wanted him so SO SOOOO bad!!" Yup, I guess the Easter bunny just knew. :) Katelee and her ducky have been together every second since she found him.

Saturday night, Katelee had sweet dreams cuddled up with her ducky (a.k.a. Cutie Pie).

We try to make Easter morning very special. The Easter bunny and egg hunts are over, but we make a special breakfast, listen to beautiful music, and Katelee gets new church clothes. Then we have an Easter devotional. Today we watched the movie Finding Faith in Christ and read the accounts in the scriptures of Easter morning. We also took a few photos before church.

Katelee loved her new Easter dress.

(Many thanks to the Grovers for their generous hand-me-downs!)

After church, it was home for a lovely Easter ham-and-potato dinner. After dinner, we decided to play some games as a family. We began inventing Easter Egg games. We had relay races while balancing plastic eggs on spoons,

played egg toss, took turns hiding Easter eggs and racing to find them, played hot and cold with Easter eggs, and played Easter egg golf.

Daddy got his Easter egg golf ball in the hole first...

followed by Katelee, at a close second. ;)

Overall, it was a wonderful Easter weekend.

I am profoundly grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ, for his life, his death, and his resurrection.

Oh, sweet the joy this sentence gives,

I know that My Redeemer Lives!

Happy Easter everyone!