Happy Easter

We had a crazy busy awesome Easter weekend so I just decided to do it all in one blog post, complete with TONS of pictures! We started out with a ward primary activity on Saturday, which included an egg hunt and train rides!! I had to be there an hour early to help set up so Jordan was in charge of getting the girl ready and even did her hair for the first time! I think he did pretty good, as you can see from the pictures :) Madison was in heaven from start to finish as she loves being outside and being around other kids! She's still talking about the train and the trampoline she got to jump on, which is also one of her favorite things! She polished off most of the candy from the eggs she found before we even got home (although she may have had just a tiny bit of help from Mom and Dad!) 

Jordan and I worked hard Saturday night putting together her Easter basket, filling more plastic eggs with candy and hiding them all over the house for her to find the next morning! She liked her basket (which was candy free but had new coloring books, crayons, headbands and a funny Mrs. Potato Head) but I was really anticipating a lot of excitement as she discovered the hidden eggs! Of course, she had other plans! She had already figured out from the previous day's egg hunt that all the eggs had candy so instead of running around to find them all, she just picked up the first one she could see and hopped on the couch to eat the candy. When she finished off the first egg, she grabbed a second and chowed down! This was her m.o. the whole day, meaning that Jordan and I spent Sunday night collecting all the eggs she hadn't grabbed yet! (although we ended up missing one, a fact we only discovered when she bounded into our room first thing Monday morning with a mouthful of M&Ms!!) We did learn a valuable lesson, though: no candy before Church!! She was seriously hyper during Sacrament meeting, which was especially fun for me since Jordan was part of the Easter program and was thus sitting on the stand. Nothing like being 30 weeks pregnant trying to corral a squirmy two-year-old who insists on singing at the top of her lungs during what is supposed to be a spiritual meeting! Gotta love her!

The candy-induced craziness continued that afternoon during what was supposed to be naptime ... yeah right. Didn't happen. She did manage to put together quite an outfit for herself during the time she was in her room while also dumping out every single one of her totes. Socks and diapers everywhere! Have I mentioned how much I love her?! Finally we gave up and got dressed back up in our Easter duds for a little family photo shoot and then headed to a friend's house for Easter dinner! In addition to great company and fantastic food, our friend Jennie had prepared yet another egg hunt for Madison and her five-year-old son Brayden. As if she needed more candy!! By this point, she was an old pro and soon had her basket so full that every egg she tried to put in would just fall back out! I think she "found" the same eggs at least five times! I'll admit that when the two kids went back inside and pulled the candy out of the eggs, I grabbed a few handfuls out of Madison's basket to throw in Brayden's! I'm a mean Mom! I think next year we'll do pennies or stickers or something :)

On a more serious note, I'm grateful for the opportunity we had to be together as a family this weekend and celebrate our Savior. While Maddie definitely enjoyed all the egg and candy craziness, she's also becoming so much more aware of some of the spiritual things we are trying to teach her, which is very rewarding as a parent! She has started to take turns with us saying prayers and loves to watch her favorite Jesus movie (Finding Faith in Christ) just as much as she likes watching Mickey. She has been obsessed with "Prophet Monson" this past week since we just had General Conference and wants me to find her a "Prophet movie" whenever I get my computer out (we have to watch those on YouTube since we don't have any movies with him in them!) She also knows all the words to I Am A Child of God and I Love To See The Temple. My favorite moment, though, came last week as we started to say our family prayer before bed. We were all on her bed with our arms folded about to start when suddenly she said "Mickey prays" and grabbed the stuffed Mickey she sleeps with. Mickey had to fold his arms and bow his head along with the rest of us while we prayed! I think anyone would agree that being a parent is hard work and you often wonder if you're doing anything right! But it's moments like this that give me some hope that maybe we're on the right track! I'm so grateful that I get to share something that is so important to me with her!

At the Primary Easter Egg hunt

She was very excited about jumping on the trampoline! She loves to "jump high"

Classic Madison

My camera ran out of batteries so I didn't get any other pictures of the train, but she seriously loved it!!

Is it bad that I completely forgot that we even dyed eggs while I was typing the stuff above?! That's why we take pictures, folks!

Not pleased with being interrupted by Mom taking pictures

Our annual Bunny Cake! (a Connery family tradition). Jordan requested a green bow tie this year.

Easter dinner with friends

Enjoying her third egg hunt of the weekend!

All smiles with her buddy Brayden!

Happy Easter from the Rothlisbergers! (and yes, this counts as a pregnancy picture!)

Our cute girl!

She loves flowers!

Give her enough time and she'd find her way in there!

Does this girl ever not have her tongue out?!

I hope she'll always be this happy and fun!