Our Easter Weekend...

There were Mini Eggs, chicks, Easter bunnies and chocolate galore, but it was not those things that made our Easter this year. Instead it was remembering the real meaning...

Good Friday kicked off with a fabulous family service at church where some of the Easter characters shared their stories. The girls were mesmerised... and it brought the truth of this amazing season back home for all of us. I won't deny I shed a tear or two when listening to "Mary Magdalene" at the empty grave... it was such a creative, helpful way to remind us what its really all about...

Photo courtesy of my lovely friend Kirsty!

The afternoon was spent with school friends... an Easter lunch, lots of little people running around, and lots of cups of tea and catching up.. and some little people who were sad to go home/say goodbye at the end of it all. It's been so much fun this year, getting to know Ava's little school friends and their families... we're all on countdown to the big primary school reveal on April 16th now (oh help!)

Easter Saturday was a normal Saturday - finishing unpacking from our trip to Wales last week (more on that to follow), a shop in Lidl and some down time for some girlies still recovering from a fun-packed, full-on holiday. We all needed some quiet time, and Saturday was perfect for it.

And then came Easter Sunday... the highlight of our year, the celebration of the greatest day in history. And it kicked off in the usual fashion with our Easter breakfast... hot cross buns, strawberry jam, a good amount of chocolate (yes - even a little for breakfast... are we bad parents?!?) and the highlight... the revealing of our Easter garden; the dead leaves and flowers were gone, and replaced by a lively, colourful garden... and the tomb? Well, the stone was rolled away, and the carefully laid linens had disappeared...

JESUS IS ALIVE!

The girls were delighted with their goodies, and we bookended our breakfast with the Easter story from a combination of the Bible and their children's bible...

Church was celebratory, with a couple of wonderfully moving baptisms thrown in, and was just as it should be. A joyful remembering of all that we have to be thankful for... and more important than all else, the Saviour who has made us right with God... and is living today! If you want to find out more, check out this video...

I think as I get older, Easter means more every year. I guess slowly (yes, I will be bidding farewell to my twenties later this year!) as life experience grows, you lose some of the heady optimism of youth. I'm still an optimist at heart, but the last few years have taught me that life is not perfect, that there are hard roads, and valleys, and dark journeys that everyone walks at some point in their life... Easter is a reminder that all is not as it should be, but that there is a plan to make it right again. That this life is not all there is. That this life is not what it was meant to be. There is so much joy and hope in the knowledge that Jesus has done the deal. Made the down-payment. If I trust in him, I have a certain place with him for eternity. So the hard stuff in this life is given a new perspective.

I am daily thankful. 

Easter Sunday afternoon was spent in the glorious sunshine with Dave's brother, his wife and their gorgeous baby boy... a few pictures of our fun-filled afternoon below.

This Easter, as always, leaves me thankful, joyful, grateful, amazed, in wonder...

I am so undeserving... and yet blessed beyond hope.

Happy Easter to all my lovely readers :-)