I hope everyone had a blessed Easter celebrating our risen Savior! We had a very blessed Easter besides the fact that the boys had colds and we couldn't go to church. Bummer! I love going to church on Easter, but oh, well. Thankfully their colds didn't stop the family from coming over though. We had Easter at our house with both sides of the family and some friends. As we were home waiting for everyone's arrival, it was pouring down rain all morning and then began to snow!!! It only snowed for a few minutes and didn't stick, but it doesn't usually snow at our house. So all I could think about was the egg hunt and how were we going to do that in my small home! Thankfully we had a break in the weather and were able to hurry and do the egg hunt in our front yard. The day turned out great and we had a blessed time with all our family.
The morning started with the boys finding their Easter baskets on the table with their chocolate bunnies. All Jake wanted for Easter was a chocolate bunny. So I told them, as Dadda was sleeping in, that they had to wait to eat their chocolate bunnies until Dadda saw them with them and after they ate breakfast. But lo and behold look what I found as someone snuck down the hall by himself...
Here are pictures of our day...
Dad & Mom above with Chuck & Linda below. Both Chuck and my Dad had just gotten back from Haiti 2 days before. They both said it was the most radical experience they have ever had...very humbling and stretching, but were extremely blessed!
Matthew, Levi & Amy
David & Jenna
Chris, Kristen & baby Faith
Our friends, Mike & Johnna, who came with their girls
Matthew & me
Most of the kiddos
Pretty girls, Gracie & Faith
Kristen & beautiful Faith
Grandpa & Ben
Jake and Ben on their egg hunt
Oh, I just love that baby girl! Isn't she the cutest!
Me and all my boys
Our family started a new tradition...our prayer jar. We've been doing it for a couple months now and it has been such a blessing in our lives. I have done a couple prayer jars in the past, but this is the first that we have done as a family. We put the names of our family and friends on a small piece of paper and fold them up and put them in our prayer jar. Every week we have the boys each pick one name out of the jar and we pray for those two families everyday all week. The boys get so excited on the night that they get to pick out a new family. We then send those families a card letting them know that we have been praying for them that week. It has been so awesome to see the Lord work through this little prayer jar. We've had several of those people that we've sent the cards to come up to us and thank us and tell us how much it encouraged them and that it was the perfect week to pray for them because of what was happening that specific week in their lives. It has been so encouraging to us to hear those stories. It is a great opportunity to teach our boys the importance of praying for others and at the same time teach them how to pray. We pray for those families everytime we pray throughout the day. It melts my heart to hear my boys praying and growing in their prayer lives since we've started this. The Lord put it on my heart to share this on my blog last night as I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep:) Hopefully it will encourage you and possibly you can also start a prayer jar with your family and witness for yourselves the power of prayer in your family and the lives of your loved ones!
