Plastic Eggs and Easter Morn

"He is risen; he is not here."
Mark 16:6

Between Friday and Saturday, the girls attended three Kid-O-Deo church services. Loran and I volunteered in the early childhood area for two of them and then took in the service for ourselves. Despite being frequent fliers in Kid-O-Deo, where I was worried they’d get annoyed with going three times in a row, they were delighted! They would have attended all five services had we let them. Both were very excited about Easter, beyond the bunny and the eggs. I’m excited to watch their spiritual growth. Seeing church, Jesus and God through their eyes is magical. They keep us accountable by reminding us to say our before-meal-prayers and bedtime prayers. And while sometimes they thank God for the things in front of their eyes, like milk, the clock and the table -  they also surprise us by going a little deeper and will pray for the little children, for family and friends, for peace and health. And every meal, Lillian asks if we can “read Jesus” from our daily devotionals. It’s wonderful to have a child’s devotion to Jesus to model our own adult selves over.

And without forgetting the reason behind while we were celebrating Easter, we also enjoyed the plastic side of the season. The girls woke up and Loran and I raced to intercept them while they were still chatting in their beds. (Quite possibly the best part of having the two share the room is listening to them over the monitor in the morning. The chatter is great, and adorable) We knew if we left them awake and on their own too long, Ella would saunter downstairs and quickly snatch up as many eggs as possible while Lily was still caged. Once we released them, they quickly found the first of the eggs hidden at the top of the stairs and were off! There were 44 eggs hidden stuffed with one M&M each. One “nem”, as Lily calls them, seemed a bit skimpy, but the thought of the girls having at least 22 peanut butter “nems” for breakfast was frightening.

There was much excitement as the eggs were gathered. Lily learned how to pop them open and snatch up the treats, Ella was more focused on collecting as many eggs as possible.

A certain egg collector was clearly munching on a green “nem” in one of these photos…

The Basket–along with Lily saying “excuse me” in her adorable way.

Lillian actually uncovered Ella’s Easter basket first in the ottoman. And Lily soon found hers in the bathtub. The bunny couldn’t actually fit everything in the baskets, so there was also a gift…of bath towels, so it wasn’t overly extravagant. Ella did receive a baseball glove, however. She wasn’t impressed, as she wasn’t exactly sure as to what it was. When she realized it was for baseball, she did the only thing she figured logical when it was placed on her hand, she whipped her hand forward in a throwing motion propelling the glove across the room. Clearly, we have more baseball practice to do. However, the glove whipping technique was pretty funny and elicited some giggles. 

Once the girls were bathed and dressed in their Easter finest, hair detangled and done up with pigtails we attempted go over the Easter story using our Resurrection Eggs. And while the photos look all perfect and wonderful…truth is, there was controlled chaos. In between these few photos, there was fighting over who would open the egg (despite going every-other-egg), tears, crying, hiding of the object in the egg from the rival egg opener and then throwing of the eggs. We pressed on, and perhaps a morsel or two of knowledge sunk in between the egg wrestling. I can only assume it will get better as they age. And if it doesn’t, we have bigger problems than plastic egg envy.

Before we left for the day, I wanted to get a picture of the two girls in their still clean dresses and non-mussed hair by the beautiful blooming azalea bush. I knew it would be rough. Getting these two to cooperate and have photos taken together is nearly impossible. Someone is always making a face, looking away, blurry or walking away. First they started about four feet away from one another. Then I got them near each other, but grumpy. So, we tried to do some stretches and songs. Stretches worked, but they were smiling with their hands above their heads like it was a hold-up. We finally got some goofy smiles and arms crossed. I’ll take it. It may not be perfect, but it’s mine and I love it!