Easter Blessings: Egg Hunt

Some of my favorite Easter memories are the Egg Hunts that Grandma & Grandpa Fulton would hold in their front yard.  Lots of eggs and lots of prizes...and a whole lot of fun with the whole neighborhood invited. My mother carried on the tradition with my children and friends of the family.  They still talk about the year when she changed the rules to 'the first shall be last' and the one with the least eggs got the biggest chocolate bunny.  (They are still not happy about it either!)

We may not involve the whole neighborhood, but we still have lots of fun!

They are SOOO ready to get started.  Every year they wait on that top step ready to go while Mommas and Daddies wait until the very last second to put on their mud boots or grab a camera from the car.  The grandchildren can hardly stand the wait!

But once they are off...

there is no stopping them.

We still hide them in the wide open, except for a few special eggs like the Queen's Nest or the Nonna & Pappaw eggs with money.  See, even the crawfish holes are not safe from Easter Eggs.

One thing I did not grow up that we do now is confetti eggs.  Here you can see Maddux cracking one on Jim's head.  Of course, Pappaw has to cooperate now; but you just wait until Maddux is a little bigger.

Once the Grands find their 150 or so eggs, it is time for the Big Kids to hunt eggs.  Each egg has a token in it worth $5, so this is some serious stuff.  (Last year we actually put money in the eggs, but two were missing for six months before Will found them while bush hogging one day.)

Did you notice their 'Easter baskets'?  Bri has a cleaning tote, Kelli is carrying my mail pouch from the back door and Josh has a leopard print bag from Mimosa Rose.  You should see them grabbing whatever they can find to put their eggs in!

This is a much more difficult hunt.  No out in the open eggs here...unless it is one of the confetti eggs that the grandchildren helped me to hide.  Thankfully no one came across a snake during the hunt, though a few briers were encountered.  Mostly by me while hiding the eggs!

Somehow Kelli and Matt always walk away with the most money.  I don't know if it is because they see better than the rest or if they are used to finding things hidden by the kids.

That was our Easter!  I hope yours was filled with family and fun too!

Easter Blessings: Family

Jim and I are absolutely crazy about these five!

I really don't know when they all grew up.

In my mind they should look like this:

Not this:

(Don't you like how I just sneaked in another pictures of the Grands? LOL!)

They are now ALL OFFICIALLY ADULTS.

Seriously, y'all, when did that happen?

And here we are all together.

Believe it or not, this rarely happens.  Not a one missing.  No one out working, or taking a nap, or out on a date.  So I made them all line up for pictures, most against their will.  It may not look professional, but we take them where we can get them.

Easter Blessings: The Grands

Grandchildren make the world...

...a little softer,

...a little kinder,

...a little warmer.

What a blessing it was to celebrate Easter a day early surrounded my our WHOLE family.  But aren't these faces just the cutest?  The five of them bless our lives in ways we never could have imagined.  If you can't tell by that last picture...yes, they are the apples of Nonna and Pappaw's eyes!

Photo 1: Davin holding Delayne, Brooke, and Maddux holding Elliot on a blanket in the front yard before brunch.

Photo 2: Brooke, Maddux and Davin on Pappaw's antique tractor.

Photo 3: Delayne and Elliot in their Easter presents (matching walkers) so they could be part of the egg hunt too.

Photo 4: Elliot, Davin, Jim, Maddux, Me, Brooke and Delayne.  I told y'all, 'apples of our eyes'!

Praying For Boston

Horrible evils done to innocent bystanders never make sense. They gouge at your heart and make your head spin.  Even more so when you have stood in the very places where they stood.

This was a picture that Robin snapped of me as we waited on a taxi in front of the Lenox hotel on the corner of Exeter and Boylston Streets in Boston back in February of 2011.

And this picture of our hotel was taken from Prudential Skywalk Observatory the day we left.  You can see the yellow Boston Marathon Finish Line running across Boylston (just above the hotel).

As soon as I heard the news yesterday my mind recalled the surroundings and the people we met. People who worked at the hotel, the shops and the restaurants that line the beautiful Back Bay area.  And along with most of America, I grieved...for the families of those lost, for the injured, for the shell shocked participants & spectators, for the first responders...for Boston...and for all of us.

And while I don't even presume to make sense out of senseless acts of evil...I found encouragement in this morning's Scripture reading (taken from the New Living Translation).

For he has not ignored or belittled the suffering of the needy.
    He has not turned his back on them,
    but has listened to their cries for help.
Psalm 22:24

Lord, help us all!