Ila is content with a teething ring; Eden is watching her two TV shows of the day... Let's do this quick quick quick! First Eden and Ila's Palm Sunday pictures. Because A. my dad and Susie bought their dresses in Ireland so they're special to me B. this is one of my all-time favorite pictures of Eden ever (and I take a lot of pictures - y'all may have noticed!) Okay - on to Easter weekend! Last Saturday and Sunday were completely jam-packed and completely wonderful! On Saturday morning we took Eden (and Ila) to the community Easter egg hunt. so excited on the way there! We went home for a quick lunch for Eden and a quick nap for Ila. awwwww... Then we headed over to my dad's cousin's house (she lives across a pasture from us). My second cousin, Meredith, was in town for the weekend with her little girl, and Nancy and Meredith invited us over so that Eden and Savannah could play. They had stuffed a piñata with Easter eggs and stickers and toy jewelry and bouncy balls, and it was so sweet, so cute, so fun! Eden and Savannah loved it! We went back to our house, and Eden and I dyed Easter eggs while Ila watched us from her bumbo seat. Later that evening, Dustin's parents came over. Eden and Dustin's mom dyed more eggs, and Dustin set up his fryer on the deck, and we had an outdoor dinner feast of fried fish, fried shrimp, fried soft-shelled crabs, hush puppies and french fries. I love going to my grandma's church for the big services like Christmas and Easter. So much so that I found it worth it to wake up at 4:45 to get everything and everyone ready to leave our house by 6:45 to be at her church for the 8:15 service (though I really REALLY think we should consider going to the 11:00 service next year!). We don't do the Easter bunny. Partly because I think he's super creepy (LIKE REALLY!), and partly because I don't feel he adds much to Easter the way Santa Claus adds so many fun things to Christmas. Eden got her little pink golf clubs that morning (so cute, pictures of her playing golf coming soon!), Ila got a giant stuffed rabbit, and Eden knows the presents are just from Mommy and Daddy. I was a little nervous about how to explain Easter to Eden. Christmas was easy - Jesus's birthday! Great! She understands birthdays and babies being born! Easter is definitely trickier, and I knew anything about Jesus dying was going to be way over her head. So I told her that Easter is when we celebrate that one day we will all get to go live in heaven with God and Jesus. She seemed excited about that, and she asked cute questions like, "Does Daddy get to come with us?". We talked about it every night during her bedtime routine. I was pretty proud of myself because she seemed to really understand what I was telling her each night (we talked a lot about heaven). She thought that we were all going to go to heaven at the same time, but I just let that slide. It wasn't until about a week before Easter that I realized she thought that we were all going to heaven ON Easter! Oops! I explained that we weren't going to heaven on Easter, that's just when we celebrate it (although I did tell my mom that maybe she knew something we didn't!), but even after trying to explain it better, on the way to church on Easter morning, Eden said, "I'm excited to see Jesus at church!" Hmmmm.... guess I didn't do as good as I thought. Ila was the most precious thing EVER all dressed up for her first Easter! (Dustin said, "Why is Ila dressed like it's the 1800s?") An attempt at a picture of them both after church: not so much Eden just hanging out at the tomb of Jesus: After church we had lunch at Babin's (which happens to be where we had lunch for Eden's first Easter too!) with my grandma, my mom, Mark, Jacob, Marshall and Audrey. Then we spent the afternoon and evening at Pops and Granny's house with my dad's side of the family, and Eden got to hunt more eggs with her cousins. (Eden knows that I'm the one who puts the eggs out, and that's cool with her as long as she can put them in her Easter basket and then eat whatever goodies I put in them.) We tried to get a picture of the four cousins together. Three out of four is pretty good! It was a happy, happy Easter! Maybe by next year, I can explain it better to Eden!