Who the Easter Bunny brought to town...

Family.
Fun-filled.
Joyous.

Laughter.

Togetherness.

Smiles.

Memories.

Happiness.

Easter.

And so it was all of the above which made our Easter one of a kind. Even more special is that it served as Lincoln's first Easter. Judging by his special treats and toys brought by the Easter Bunny, I'd have to guess that he liked it.

For our fourth year family tradition, my family traveled to our house to celebrate the holiday weekend. I would be remiss if I didn't recollect the first year of our family starting this tradition stemming from when Ava was in the NICU. To this day, I'll never forget the flood of emotions that pulsed through my heart and my mind spending such a joyous, religious holiday heartsick over our beloved little angel. From that experience, I believe that my feelings toward Easter have been forever changed. Now, I hug my kids even tighter and longer. My heart wants to burst from my chest to hear their laughter. And their smiles make my whole world happy and right. But most of all, I want to fall to my knees and praise God beyond words for creating our beautiful children and making us a family. The Lord is good indeed.

So, as I wipe my tears... let me share some of our weekend where we stayed busy spoiling our kids and making memories.

My parents arrived on Friday as to get an early start jumping right into the weekend. Greg, Kate and Colin arrived strategically after nap time and I don't remember hearing silence in our house since. Colin was given the star treatment as he was welcomed at the back door by a very excited cousin who was bouncing up and down with anticipation. For only seeing each other a handful of times throughout the year, they are each others biggest fans. Colin was given free reign of Elaina's toys and just happened to choose the two most questionable ones in the house. A scooter and handcuffs, what else? Since I'm only joking, I'll say that he played really well and passed his toddler- scooter-driving test with flying colors. As for the handcuffs, eh, they didn't stick. We've already tried that on another certain toddler. Our Saturday evening dinner consisted of a trip to our favorite local pizza joint which we frequent (almost) weekly. I wanted to give my foodie brother and S-I-L a taste of quality small town dining and was thrilled when they awarded it an enthusiastic thumbs up. Stop on over to Kate's blog to see our dinner crew and see if you can guess who is the hungriest of all.

In my Dad's opinion, despite our two little lovables (and his only daughter!) a trip to our house wouldn't be complete without a trip to the ice cream place. Again, Kate has some great pics over at her blog since my mom and I stayed home with Lincoln to get a jump on some cooking and baking preparations for Easter dinner the next day. Somehow, we found it just a little bit easier to cook without 6 other bodies in the house. After some unusual sleeping arrangements to get everyone bedded down for the night, the Easter Bunny found his way into our house and left loads and loads of goodies all over. He even took a giant bite out of cake we had baked for dessert the following day. I never would have guessed that bunnies liked chocolate cake so much. Mmm... Also, when the kids woke they were both somehow blindsided to the very obvious and very full Easter baskets left outside of their doors. Elaina and Colin both received two loaded baskets of goodies to Lincoln's very special one. Lincoln didn't particularly mind that some surprises just happened to land in his room already.

Easter morning has found the whole family loaded into our upstairs hallway as the kids unload their baskets of goodies and load their mouths with sweet confections. It's just funny to me that our hallway receives such fanfare one time a year. After the best egg hunt on record for Elaina and Colin, both kids resumed their unofficial candy eating contest. Neither was declared the winner since both of them conceded to a mid-morning nap. Did you hear the Hallelujah like I did? I have to say that our dinner was a team effort of fabulous-ness. The food, the help and the company. Most unfortunate is that Elaina didn't join us since she had just woken from her nap and wasn't in the eating kind of mood. Most times, Eric and I would be more persitent in trying to coerce her, but on a non-typical day like this day, we were in no position of winning. I guess that was lucky for Colin who got first dibs on dessert. As for Lincoln's first Easter and our fourth annual family tradition, this holiday was as joyous and abundant as ever. Celebrating with our baby boy and the magic of the Easter bunny through the eyes of our children made it the best of all!

I hope yours was just as good!