Last year, Emma may have celebrated her first Easter, but this year, she really got to experience everything about the holiday! We went to our church’s annual Easter Egg Hunt, her school had an Easter Egg Hunt, and she stayed with us during the church service before we headed to grandmother’s for quite the feast!
At Trinity, they had a large festival almost complete with bouncy house, crafts and a photo spot. She held & petted a tiny baby chick (with loads of assistance mind you!) and was so curious about this tiny little fluffy creature. Her first Easter egg hunt was a success too! Emma picked it up pretty quickly that you were to grab the eggs and put them in the basket She is now COMPLETELY obsessed with carrying around the basket and putting eggs (and everything else) in it. Of course, she just tosses them back out, but she is having a blast with it. They split the egg hunts into age groups, so she was less than thrilled however when the next round started and we scooped her up to go back up front. But, thankfully, she was rather easily distracted by making our own tiny egg hunt out in the grass!
For the egg hunt at school, she was much the same! Glenn was able to go since it was in the afternoon and took the cutest pictures! I am so thankfully his schedule allows for him to not only get her early, but also be there to participate in all of her fun little activities! He’s seriously the most amazing daddy to her and Emma is just obsessed with “dada”. Mommy is too!
Emma is quite talkative and isn’t into sitting for long periods unless she’s sleepy, so we were a little worried about how the service was going to go on her first Easter Sunday at church. But we really wanted to have Emma in the service with us, to celebrate Easter as a family, much like with the Christmas services. We hope so dearly that Emma will grow up learning about Jesus and desiring to seek after Him. So we were armed with quiet toys, stress ball (it was in my car), pipe clearers, and a little bag of puffs. She ended up walking back and forth with her toys much of the time (thankfully our friends have a tiny one too so they were ok with it) and family was equally supportive. She basically just bounced around from one person to the next during worship then spent the majority of the sermon eating one tiny puff at a time. We were so proud!
At Trinity, one of the traditions is to bring flowers to adorn the cross outside, and it is customary to take a family picture in front of the cross. So naturally, this was on the agenda, especially as we didn’t go to the service last year since Emma was barely two weeks old! So naturally, insert major meltdown. I mean, full on diva. All because she would rather walk around in the grass and try to grab the flowers than be held for a picture. So, our picture in front of the cross, is less than picturesque. Mommy is about to loose it. Daddy can’t stop laughing. And Emma’s little lip is poked out so far with tears streaming down her face – which you can’t see however, because she completely protested even looking at the camera. Fail. And y’all, I was so past irritated because I had boiled our Easter experience down to taking this perfect picture in front of the gorgeous cross because that’s what you do that I completely lost reality of why we were there in the first place.
As we were walking to the car, Emma had already calmed down and was nuzzled up in daddy’s arms, my sweet husband was assuring me we would take a picture at grandmother’s out in front of the big tree, and reminding me that everything would be ok. And in that moment, I realized that as much as I need my husband to balance me and ground me (especially for moments like these as he’s the laid back steady one) that I need Him because he constantly reminds me of what truly matters. He constantly shows me the love of Christ. And he is doing the very same thing for our daughter.
