Holy Week, Birthday Parties, Egg Hunts, and Easter Sunday

You can tell by the title that this last week has been BUSY!!
Just like many of you, our week was filled with many church activities celebrating what we call "Holy Week". This is the week leading up to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the week that seals what we believe in our Christian faith. Its a celebratory week for followers all across the world. We are reminded of Jesus' preistly role, his brotherly role, his human role, and his sovereign role in all of our lives.

The week started like any other Holy week, a blow out excitement filled service Palm Sunday experience, then on Maundy Thursday we experienced a traditional seder meal at church. It was a very enlightning experience to say the least. A well known scholar, Dr. Jim Fleming, visited our church to walk us through the reason behinds the traditions. He taught us many things that just reading from the Bible would not teach us. He has done all his homework and literally brought the stories of the New Testament to life.

Friday was Good Friday, we opted to not attend the Good Friday service at our church, we typically have not attended this service through the years. I'm not sure why we choose to not attend, but its a service remembering Jesus' death experience on the cross.

We hosted a birthday party at our house in honor of a dear friend who moved away last year. His birthday fell on Good Friday this year and they were in town to celebrate Easter and his birthday with family. It was such a wonderful feeling to have our home filled with great friends and sweet baby girls running around everywhere! Its moments like that reminded you how much the Lord has blessed us in our lives.

Saturday was the big 1st egg hunt for AK! We decided Friday night that we would get up head to Old Navy to take advantage of their "One Day Wonder" sale on Polo's for just $6 each, and then go for special breakfast out with our last stop being the church for the big Resurrection Celebration and egg hunt! What we discovered was that on special sale days our Old Navy opens super early! I had Matt call the store when we woke up at 7am to find out what time they opened. We were expecting a recording to give us the hours, when much to our surprise the store clerk answered the phone!! They were already open at 7am!! WHO KNEW?! So we decided with the sale being so good that we shouldn't wait - we hopped out of bed, rushed to put on some comfy clothes, grabbed a sleepy AK and went shopping. We of course never intended to end up at the church without going back to shower and clean up and we never ever intended to run into people we knew!
We scored huge at Old Navy, not just on the polo shirts for Matt (this is his work wardrobe), but they had a grown up version of an egg hunt in the store. They had bar codes hidden throughout the store that you had to scan with your iPhone or droid - when you scanned the bar code it entered you for a chance at $50,000 but it also gave you chance for an instant win of several thousand dollars or coupons.
There were 15 bar codes to find in the store, I think we gave up after 12 - we didn't win big money, I'm sure that since we didn't find the last 3 codes they were probably instant 5K winners, but oh well! We did each score a great BOGO coupon. We also found an amazing clearance rack that had blue jeans in Matt's size for just $6! We walked out of Old Navy with 6 polo shirts, 2 pairs of jeans, 2 pairs of shorts, and 2 t-shirts for less than $100 - in fact we saved over $100 from all the sales and coupons. This amazing shopping experience of course took us longer than we thought it would so we rushed over to Chappy's Deli for a special family breakfast out.
Just as we got settled into our booth (which is our new trick to keep AK satisfied out to eat) we see some friends from church walk in the door. Being the sweet friends that they are they asked if we wanted to join them for breakfast. Much to our surprise 2 more families were joining us that morning. They were all heading to the church after breakfast with their baby girls for the egg hunt as well. The only difference is they were all dressed up and ready to be seen by the world. Remember we hopped out of bed to run an errand and didn't shower before we left! We were so unprepared for the entire breakfast experience. All the baby girls were dressed so beautifully in their smocked bunny dresses and then there was my sweet AK literally still in her PJ's! We had no highchair cover b/c we originally intended to seat in a booth! AK does not sit in the highchair for more than 5 minutes so this was a bad scene from the get go. Matt and I ended up passing AK back and forth from one lap to another. Anything to keep her happy - all the other sweet baby girls were behaving so nicely, seating in their highs chairs and not making any sort of scene! My child was literally climbing across the table to get to things out of her reach! She wouldn't drink her own drink but rather insisted on drinking from my cup or worse yet her daddy's coffee mug! She saw the packet of creamer and was immediately entertained by this plastic yet squishy object. I tried to tell Matt discretely that he may feel a trickle liquid run down his arm b/c she was gnawing on this creamer container,  but he was talking and I couldn't seem to interrupt him. Before I could say a word or give a warning "POP" she burst the container and liquid creamer sprayed everywhere! "OH NO" I was so embarrassed!! Not only did creamer run down Matt's arm, but it sprayed across the table touching every nicely dressed person in it's path. It was sort of funny until I realized the bulk of the cream landed square on the forehead of one of this precious, well behaved little girls. I was so upset that my insatiable child caused this major commotion at the breakfast table. Our food came and she refused to eat, making it hard for us to enjoy our meal and fellowship with these other families. We rushed out of the restaurant realizing that our time had really gotten away from us now that we ate with a large group of people. We needed to be at the church like right that moment to fully enjoy the activities of the day. We rushed home, changed clothes - which was inspired by those other young couples at breakfast and dressed AK in her bunny dress I sewed a month before. We did make it to the church just in time for the egg hunt.
The egg hunt was so much fun. We had tried to practice hunting eggs for a couple of weeks before, but in true toddler fashion AK was only interested in breaking the eggs apart. She did collect quite a few eggs - but eventually gave up on the egg hunt. They had inflatable eggs and balls for the little ones to hunt, and those were the biggest hit when all was said and done.
That afternoon AK had her first experience with Easter candy. She tasted smarties for the first time, and then accidentally discovered the jelly bean!
The next morning she woke up to a stuffed Easter basket filled with all kinds of goodies. Crayons, bubbles, toys, and peeps!! We dressed in our best Sunday clothes and pearls and headed to church to celebrate our Risen Savior.
I had put a roast on and when we got home I put the finishing touches on our meal. Roast, potatoes, carrots, a side of pineapple casserole, and roasted asparagus. While the casserole was cooking, Matt hid a few of the Easter eggs in the front the yard flower beds - AK went out in her Sunday best and hunted eggs. It was such a fun day filled with first time memories!