Easter Firsts and Lasts

Romans 3:23-24
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
I told you all in my last post, I adore Easter. The message, the weather, the candy, the dresses, the people. Love it. Our Easter traditions are so wonderful. ALL of our families get together and have a HUGE egg hunt in the backyard of my in-laws. I feel like it is always so fun, and so laid back. It's not a who gift holiday, so people are not pressured to buy. This is my little REW's first Easter! For the past 4 years, we have also been honored to celebrate with our dear friend, and Baylor Basketball player, Mamadou Diene. Along with Dou, he has brought along other Baylor athletes to our fun. He had his first Easter egg hunt with us when he was just a freshman! Yesterday, he seemed so grown up to me. He is a man now! Ready to go the next step in life, whatever that may be. I loved having him as part of the family in this way and we have all grown to love him. Here are some past Easters with him for you to read about if you want to see ALL of our transformations...clearly, things have majorly changed for me!
Easter 2005
Easter 2006
Easter 2007
Easter 2008--we were in DC coming home from watching the Bears in the NCAA tournament.

The morning started out rainy. We were sad because we thought the egg hunt may be in jeopardy. We frantically (as always) got ready for church and I somehow managed to snap these pics of the muffins. *Note that taking pictures of them TOGETHER is a rare and almost impossible treat. You will see more of those attempts later on.*
Here is my REW...isn't she as cute as pie? And the Mug. Handsome devil, he is...

And Dou....

After church, we picked up Dou and headed to Gigi and Pop Pop's where there were 25+ people waiting--including, my fam, Kendra's fam, The Norris', The Polnicks, cousins, etc.! Would you believe that the weather turned super warm and sunny?? It was PERFECT!! Thanks, Lord! We ate a yummy lunch of meat and taters (everyone brought potatoes funny enough!) and the guys watched NBA, as well as the Master's upstairs. Something for everyone. The girls chatted and took pictures of the babies in their Easter best. The kids did not nap, ate a mother load of sugar and still maintained their composure. For the most part. I think they literally went 90 to nothing, because if they stopped, they were going to fall asleep standing up.

Tristan spent some quality him with "his Mamadou" listening to some tunes. I know he is going to love these pictures one day.

Sweet Dou was kind enough to let me and Kimbo be paparazzi for a few minutes (I am mad at blogger b/c it deleted a cute pic of CDP, Dou and Mug and it is a beast to try to get it back in order--argh!). Here are some of Mug and Dou...

3:00 rolled around and the games were ready to begin! Get on your starting block....

GO!

I am still not sure Mug completely gets the concept of finding eggs. He likes to see one and run around shouting about it instead of picking it up.

At the end, Mug counted his loot and dove into his chocolate. I had to quit watching him eat all the candy--it sort of made me nauseated. I think Dou scored the most eggs, the Polnicks were pretty close though! There were 250 eggs, ya'll!!!

Here is my dad...his genes are strong...all of us look just like him!

We even busted out the pool! I am not sure if it was 100% warm enough to do it, but we did. The kids loved it. They were freezing afterward!

When the boys were in the pool, we got to take some girl pictures!

And the attempts to have grandchildren pictures were made...you tell me...were they a success?

REW and Colton

More attempted memories gone bad....

...and worse. This was the best shot of my kids together....

That's a wrap folks! The day ended with tots melting down and chocolate stained shirts! As soon as Brent put Mug in the car to take Dou home, Mug was lights out! What a WONDERFUL Easter! Dou, we love ya. If this is your last year with us, it was a delightful one. We pray your new journey in life is filled with success and many many friendships! You have blessed so many people here, our family included! Until next time....