Easter Weekend

Yes, I'm aware I'm almost a week late. Such is life...

We actually celebrated Easter all weekend long starting with Good Friday. LNC's day care is great in that they still have an Easter egg hunt. It usually is held on their enclosed playground, but due to the rain last week it was held in the kids' classroom. Here's my girl...I had to laugh because as I watched her she would go past the green, orange or blue eggs and only pick up the pink & purple ones. What a silly girl!!!

Then on Saturday we headed over to our friends' elementary school for our annual egg hunt with friends.

Why Indy came to the egg hunt - I'm not real sure...but they both had a really good time!

Then of course on Easter Sunday we went to church and had a great service. It was a great end to a great weekend. So glad the tulips lasted until we could take photos!

Christmas Traditions

While Christmas was a bit different from years past we tried to hang on to a few of our traditions.

Christmas Eve dinner the past couple of years has included sliced brisket & ribs from a restaurant here in Norman, Ray's Smokehouse , which is always a hit with our family! Followed by the kids sprinkling reindeer food in our front yard so Santa's reindeers can find our house. (Thank you teachers for doing this! What fun!)

Then we head inside to read the Christmas Story from the New Testament Luke Chapter 2. Finally this is the signal they need to head to bed.

Usually Christmas morning involves us getting them up. Not this year! This year they were excited to see what Santa brought them.

Then comes the handing out of the gifts. Since Robert can read this part of the day goes A LOT faster!

Lauren didn't understand that she could have more than 1 gift. She told him "no I already have 1" when he tried to give her another box.

Since Christmas was on Sunday this year we headed to church. That was a treat with beautiful music and a speaker from Sweden who was in town visiting his daughter's family. What a delight to have a General Authority from our church in Norman on Christmas.

When we got home our Kansas family was there followed shortly by our Pawnee family. Scott made his traditional homemade Italian feast which was topped off by the most incredible Italian Creme cake made by our awesome friend!!! While we missed having Dad there we enjoyed the company of our family and friends. We are so thankful for each of them.

I think our traditions are what can keep those who have passed on close to us.

May you have a happy 2012!

Traditions

I'm so thankful for our holiday traditions.

I am so grateful to my parents and my in-laws. See before we brought our two little blessings to earth we celebrated birthdays, Thanksgiving and Christmas all together as one family. Now that we have our two little blessings, they're able to spend holidays in one spot and not have to decide which side of the family we are going to visit when. Keep in mind we're able to do that because we have a small family and we all make an effort to get along. I am so glad we do. It spoils my kids but a little spoiling every now and then is a good thing.

This year we'll try a couple of new traditions. We'll see if they're good enough to keep!