Easter 2013

This year we spent Easter in Saudi and it was Savannah's first year in the Kingdom for Easter too!  Last year she was so little that Easter activities weren't a big deal, but this year I was really looking forward to sharing some fun experiences with her and Brent.  While she is too young to really understand what Easter is all about, we still tell her all about Jesus.  I really look forward to celebrating in the years to come and teaching her about Christ's death and resurrection and how this is important in our lives.

We started out our Easter celebrations with an Easter egg hunt for the kids here on the compound. Brent was able to bring Savannah an Easter basket from the States (as well as lots of goodies), but it was too big for her to actually use for the hunt.  I decided to be creative and added her name in vinyl to one of her sand castle buckets.  Thus her egg hunting basket/bucket was born.

My friend Lindsey had the brilliant idea of making our little girls t-shirts with Easter appliqué.  I was really pleased with how Savannah's shirt turned out (don't look too closely- it's not perfect!)!

On the big day of the hung we dressed Savannah up and headed out for the big event!  It took Savannah about ten seconds to figure out that she was supposed to grab the egg and bring it to the basket Dad was holding.  She did this happily with a good six or seven eggs, but then she discovered something truly wonderful!  While holding an egg, it popped open to reveal something inside!  At that point she hightailed it back to her basket and spent the rest of the hunt opening each of her eggs.  We got such a kick out of it!

Posing with her egg hunting partner!

This is cool!

Wait a second!  They open and there is something inside!!!!

All in all, she had a great time and got a good little loot of candy (which I ate entirely later on).

After the hunt, all of our friends got the kids together for a quick picture of them with their baskets.  There is no possible way to get all the kids to look at a camera when they just found wonderful treasures, so we did the best we could.  :)

We spent the rest of the evening grilling hamburgers and having a compound pot-luck BBQ.  It was delicious!  We had a great time watching the kids play and hanging out with good company!

Baby Bump- 20 weeks along 

Brent has always been a ladies' man!

My friend Lindsey and I also grabbed a couple of shots with our girls in their t-shirts we made for them.  Trying to get them to sit or stand next to each other long enough to take a picture turned out to be much easier said than done, so we finally picked them up and got a mom and daughter shot.  :)

Savannah and Brooklyn in their Easter Shirts

The whole afternoon and evening were a fantastic time of fellowship and fun!

We celebrated the next day (Friday) as Easter because Sunday is a work day for Brent.  After gathering for reflection, we ate lunch with our group of friends and then played a series of Easter Challenge games like Fluffy bunny and the egg toss.  I didn't get any pictures myself, but let's just say that it was hilarious!  We had a fantastic morning and afternoon with our friends.

This was the best shot I got of her by herself.

No more pictures please!

By the time we got home, Savannah was way overdo for a nap so we put her straight to bed.  When she woke up we decided to let her open her Easter basket.  The "Easter Bunny" brought Savannah all of her favorite things from the States, like coloring books, stickers, and a book!  She was very interested in inspecting each item.

Daddy (the Easter bunny) then got a great hug from his girl!

We had a fantastic weekend together and are so thankful for the gift of salvation the Lord delivered on that Easter day so long ago!  Happy Easter from our family to yours!