Happy Easter!

We hope you all had a WONDERFUL Easter Weekend! We had a great time spent celebrating Jesus' death and resurrection. What made it even more special was that we were able to spend it with some out-of-state friends that we had not seen for a while.

On Thursday morning my good friend Sarah was able to come for a short visit since she was in the area - well, a little ways away visiting her family in a Chicago suburb. She came with her two little girls and Ella had an absolute blast spending time playing with them. I had an equally good time talking and catching up. And it was fun to see her pregnant belly too! :)

Thursday night our church had a Maundy Thursday service. It was led by the choir and was a service of shadows. Ella thought it was pretty cool how all of the lights went out a little at a time. And she really paid close attention to the Christ candle, which was the last light at the end, and was carried out to end the service. It was a wonderful opportunity to talk with Ella about all of the symbolism involved and how it related to the death of Jesus and how we felt about that. And a great build-up for what we would be celebrating come Easter morning!

Late Thursday night our friends Gerrit and Michelle and their two kids arrived after making the 6-hour drive from Pella, Iowa. We were very excited to have them here and looking forward to spending Easter with their family. And to the many rounds of Settlers and Euchre that we could manage to fit in during our time together. :)

On Saturday morning the dads took the girls to the local easter egg hunt. They had a lot of fun, but we didn't get any pictures since I forgot to give Dave the camera. According to him, Ella had more fun running around and couldn't be too bothered to take the time to stop and pick up many of the colorful eggs abundantly scattered around her. So she came home with a much lighter haul than she could have had. But that was just fine as far as I was concerned.

Later that day we dyed and decorated eggs with the girls. This was the first time Ella has done this, so she was pretty excited. Here are a few pictures of the process and the results:

Getting the different color dyes ready:

Ella carefully decorates one of her colored eggs with stickers:

Showing off her work:

Admiring her four works of art - two glittery eggs and two sticker-decorated eggs:

Tessa and her beautifully decorated eggs:


Later on Saturday the dads hid a few plastic eggs and other little items in our backyard for the three kids to find. They did a great job hiding and the kids did a great job seeking (with just a little helpful hints from us when needed). Ella was pretty excited at how full her basket was at the end.

On the hunt:

Look what we found!

The girls and their loot:


On Easter Sunday we enjoyed a beautiful Easter church service. Ella was not too happy that we chose a lily to take home from the front of church instead of one of the tulips. We tried to explain that we picked the lily to honor her grandma that died since that was her favorite flower. She told me that next time we can order a tulip too for my dog Ginger that died. :)

After a very yummy ham dinner we had to say goodbye to our friends. That's never fun but we were happy to have had such a great time with them and will hopefully see them again soon.

Oh, I almost forgot what happened at the very beginning of our weekend - our 18-week ultrasound on Thursay morning. We know what we're having! It's a....
























































... GIRL!! :)