guilt = new saturday morning alarm clock

ellia: Daddy, why do you like to sleep so long on saturday morning?

daddy: Well honey, when you get older, you don't have as much energy... like your batteries are running low, so you have to charge them up.

 ellia: But I thought Jesus was your batteries?

 daddy: ............and I'm up.

 : ) love her and her little mind.

HE is Risen, HE is Risen Indeed!

What a day for celebration and reflection on all we have to rejoice over in the Lord! His Sacrifice on Friday and His power to rise again on Sunday that made Salvation possible. Overwhelmed with thankfulness over that reality today.
Whew... such a full day. Fun and tiring! We started with a great church service, challenging and emotional. Came straight home to get last minute things in order for the whole Edmonds clan (19) to join us for Easter. We had an amazing lunch (including tons of delicious desserts of course) and spent hours trying to entertain 9 kiddos with all the Easter fun we could pack in.... Egg hunting, egg dying, cupcakes, easter baskets, candy, crafts, etc. etc. The guys enjoyed chilling out watching the Masters (I tried to sit down every now and then for 2 secs to catch up on it... but well, you know how that goes).
After everyone left, it looked like a bomb went off... but another day because I certainly don't have the energy to clean it up yet! We gave the girls their Easter bags from and nana & papa and their "basket" from us, but at this point they were sugared-up-and-no-napped-out! We enjoyed reading them "What is Easter" and talking once again before bed about the true celebration of this day. (If you've never seen these books by Michelle Medlock, I highly recommend them. They have them for several different holidays. They are cute rhyming books that the girls love. The words stick with them and they talk about all the fun stuff we enjoy and then the true meaning of the said holiday.)
Peter and I finally got more than 2 minutes together to just veg and relax after a long day.
Anyway, it was a fantastic day. One of the better Easters I have had in a while! Here are a few pics from the day.... (now, off to tend to that bomb!)

my easter beauties!

not bad for only being allowed "one shot!" but coulda been better!

carrot cupcakes - turned out pretty cute! also made vanilla with chocolate buttercream and carrot cake with cream cheese frosting - YUM

Easter baskets from Aunt Tiff & Uncle Pete complete with kites for the boys and princess stuff for the girls, of course candy, and we also made "Easter S'mores kits" with peeps for each of them

 

Egg-hunting-cuties!

all the cousins checking out their loot!

egg-dying

girl-craftin'

the girls opening their easter "basket" wheelbarrow from us
with garden fun, books, stickers, etc.

  

  

completely adorable in their easter dresses if I do say so myself :)

an unexpected treat

talked the hubs into a quick, easy and yummy dinner out at our fav casual italian spot in uptown, Pasquales. We had a nice, relaxing dinner as a family and headed out. We had gotten through the parking lot almost to our car when a man came sprinting to us. He waved us down and then handed both girls each a $5 bill. He proceeded to tell us how relaxing his dinner was next to us and how we had the most well behaved kids he has ever seen. He said they deserved some ice cream and we should use the money to take them to Graeters for a treat. We said our astonished "thank-yous" and he was off.
We were completely shocked! What a fun and thankful parent moment. We just looked at each other, smiled and said "I guess we should go!" :)
thankful for the blessing of a sweet reminder of how dear and precious my kiddos are from outside eyes- its easy to get lost in the day-to-day-please-stop-fighting-over-toys-be-patient-stop-fussing-please-restate-that-sentence-without-whining stuff. They really are amazingly wonderful girls and all the credit goes straight up to the Giver of everything good.....
everything good.....even carmel ice cream from Graeters :)

finger feat

so so proud of my little girl and her recent feat! ellia's been sucking her first finger, or "my one" as she calls it, since she first found it as a newborn... 4+ years! when she turned 3 we started occasionally trying to nix the habit but never really enforced anything. at her last dentist appointment about 2 months ago, they said it was time to get serious about it. ive explained how continuing to suck her finger would hurt her teeth (and any other negative things I could think of) hoping that would merely be a good start. she wasn't seeming to catch on so we starting mentioning possibly putting a band aid or something on there as a reminder to her, but hadn't gotten that far yet.

One day she told us (with a very matter-of-fact-ive-really-thought-through-this-and-this-is-what-ive-decided tone) "I'm just not going to suck my finger anymore." We found it cute and funny and said "okay-great idea!" with no thought to it actually meaning much.
2-3 weeks later and I haven't seen a finger in that mouth once, even at bedtime. We've been amazed and so proud at the realization that she had just made up her mind and stuck to it. I'm not sure what actually triggered the decision, but no matter!

Today we decided it was time for a little reward, so we headed to Toy's R Us. We let her pick out something she wanted, which turned into more of a day-trip than we planned :) but hey! we were even able to use it as a little math-learning-time. She was given an amount to spend, so she would look at the prices and determine if it was too expensive or within her budget range. I was impressed at how well she did that... all the way through the store. (she was especially excited to discover she could, in fact, pick out more than one item as long as it was under her given amount = SCORE!)

here's are "big" girl with her chosen reward treats... a kindergarten learning activity book and a dora playdoh set!