Up from the grave HE arose...

Happy Easter!

Payton enjoyed finding some good treats in his Easter basket. 

Thanks for the Easter goodies Grandma!

We had a wonderful Easter!  The entire weekend was beautiful and Easter Sunday was a perfect day as well.  We decided for once we would stay here, at home, to celebrate a holiday.  So often, we travel on holidays - both for pleasure and to see our families.  We never seem to be home to enjoy a slow paced, relaxing day with just our little family.  We also wanted to experience Easter Sunday at our home church.  Chad is an usher at church now and they had asked that he help out on Easter Sunday so we felt even more obligated to stay at home for once.

Luckily, we had just seen most of our family members so we really enjoyed spending the weekend at home and didn't feel like we were missing out on too much at home.  I did hate that I was missing my Papaw Joe's 81st birthday on April 1st but I hope to see him soon to make up for that!  We had an egg hunt with friends early Saturday morning.  The kids and adults had a great time.  Sunday we headed to church early as a family.  Payton enjoyed placing the flowers on the cross at the front of the church.  Chad helped usher at a later service while I fixed a yummy bowl of banana pudding to take to Matt and Lindsey's for Easter lunch.  We headed to Matt and Lindsey's a little before noon.  We had a great time having lunch with them and 2 other couples.  Payton and Ella had a wonderful time playing together and all of the kids enjoyed a fun easter egg hunt in their backyard.  It was well after 4 before we headed home - Payton played to exhaustion!  He was asleep before we made it out of their neighborhood.  

Before lunch, Matt pushed Payton and Ella around in the yard.  They loved it!  It was so cute to hear them laughing!

Eventually, both Chad and Matt had to get involved and it turned into a bit of a race with a little bumber cars action mixed in as well!  Again they LOVED it and squealed in delight!  They kept asking for more!

Payton enjoyed Ella's new playground set.  All the kids enjoyed the swings and slide.

After lunch, it was time for the egg hunt.  Chad and Matt "hide" the eggs in the yard.  The kids quickly ran out to claim their eggs!

Payton is surrounded by eggs...will he find them?

Got one!

Ella....busted!  Ella's favorite part of the egg hunt was the treats inside the plastic eggs.  She slowly moved from egg to egg to see what prize she might find.  If she found a treat, the stopped in her tracks and emptied the egg before moving on to another!  She was enjoying a few jelly beans here!  It was very cute!

It is always nice to travel home for the holidays.  We are both big family people so we always love seeing everyone and in the end, we always agree that the stress of traveling is always worth the joy of seeing our families.  It is also nice to know that if we are here for a holiday, we have a wonderful group of friends to celebrate with as well.  It was a wonderful Easter Sunday!