6th Birthdays, Easter and Running

I remember Easter as a kid.  However, through the years the memories get jammed-up and I'm only left with "snap shots" of those memories.  I clearly recall green-tinted coconut on a cupcake with jelly beans plopped in the center, awkward photos with lots of shoulder pad being taken in the yard before church (I'm sure my hair was in a banana clip), finding the Golden Egg at a Long Grove Egg Hunt and winning a prize, Heather's Easter Basket being hid behind the same curtain in the dining room year after year, hunting hard-cooked eggs in the backyard on Easter Morning, my brother and cousin climbing Grandma C's tree to retrieve a chocolate Easter Bunny only to find out it didn't have either of their names on it and having to put it back. 

 

So many memories and traditions we created in honor of Jesus surviving death. 

 

Enter 2014. 

 

There is no green-tinted coconut or hidden chocolate bunnies.  The kids hunt plastic eggs, not hard-cooked, our Easter baskets aren't hidden (although I did struggle to find where I stashed them in the rental and Ross was stuck using one of my soup baskets), Ross doesn't believe in the Easter Bunny and I'm questioning if Molly even knows what the Easter Bunny is. 

 

Jesus rose from His grave on Easter so we could live.  We didn't make it to church Sunday morning to praise Him.  Yet somehow in all the smiles... the giggles... the chatter... the singing...the friendship and joy these cousins share made me sure of one thing. 

 

He came to us.

 

Papa and Sam eat pizza in the hotel room.

 

Maisie and Laura dive in to their pizza on the hotel floor.  No comment.

 

Ross, don't you dare.

She's officially 6.

Laura approved of the sticky frosting...

 

As did Maisie...

Moo...

a thumbs-up from Sam...

 

and Zach.

Maisie started smiling like this.  Must be a 6-year-old thing.

Moo and those curls.

 

Ross was moving at lightning speed during the egg hunt while Maisie moved in slow motion.

 

 

 

 

The girls took a lap around a pond behind Laura's house.

They had to cool down with ice cubes afterwards.

Moo didn't want to be left out. 

She needed ice too.