Easter Basket Fun

These first two picture obviously aren't Easter Basket pics but since they are Easter-related and another Easter post would just be ridiculous, here they are...

our attempt at a family picture :)

 and Creed on the way home from lunch after 2 Easter services- looking how we all felt!

Now the Easter baskets:  So, because our Easter Sunday are so busy, we have taken the past several years and did Easter baskets on Saturday morning instead of Sunday morning. This works out well in our world and it's not like our kids know Easter Basket protocol anyway :)

 Cadence noticed them first and had to start looking thru to see what everybody got

 our attempt at a posed picture with all 5 kids and 5 Easter Baskets - 

they're all in the picture so I think it counts :)

Everybody got a new toothbrush because our Easter Baskets are full of fun! Not really. Really they're alot of practical and things I would buy anyway for the upcoming Season and a little bit of fun. 

Alice in Wonderland socks - nothing says Easter quite like them !

 The littles all got a "shubble" for the newly replenished sand box. Creed was showing Alvin (from Alvin and the Chipmunks who is also on his new toothbrush - or "brush teeth" as we like to say around here) his new "shubble"

 Cadence liked her new sunglasses!

 actually everyone liked their new sunglasses!

Anyway, Happy Easter Y'all. 

GiGi Came to Town!!

An unexpected surprise for us this year was that GiGi got to come to NC!! She was coming to pick up Jane and Cora Sue to go back to FL with her but because she's a great GiGi and doesn't mind being exhausted and driving all over the state, she came to see us too!

The kids were so excited that GiGi was coming and it was Olivia's first time meeting her in person. 

We have just talked to her on Skype since Livie came live with us. and in true GiGi fashion, she did lots of fun things with the kids. We saved coloring any eggs for her to handle and it was a good choice for this Mama who would have been stressed over all that dye and so many kids helping :)

After getting all the eggs colored, the Callaways came over for an egg hunt!

It's crazy to think that Cadence and Kagan have been hunting eggs together for as long as they've been able to hunt eggs. I hope that these two always stay such good friends. 

After they had found the eggs that Christa and I hid "hard" for them, they got to hide the eggs for their younger brothers and sisters. Cause ya know, that's what the "big kids" have to do :)

Playing while Cadence and Kagan hid the eggs for the littles to find. 

or not playing - sometimes things happen....

and then they were off!!  The hunt had begun...

and of course after hunting all those eggs, everyone HAD to try one to see if they tasted good :)

IN the middle of a really busy season for us "ministry" people, 

I am so grateful for a fun day with family. 

Easter in the Cascades

Over the past few months, our church has taken in a neighborhood in Mooresville that is a lower income area. We've done 4 events in the neighborhood park since Christmas. Whether it's passing out coats, doing a Valentines party, or just the bus coming thru on a weekly basis to pick kids (and adults) up for church, we have specifically targeted this area of town to build relationships in and share the love of Christ with these people. So, when we started talking about an Easter event, obviously this neighborhood was the place to do it!  So, after the pastors started talking they decided that a big blow-out event was in order :)

After getting church people to stuff 5000 eggs, it was the day of the event. and everyone was so excited to see what God was going to do in the converging of this community with our church community. 

The Andersens are always in charge of tech stuff 

and so we're teaching our littles how to be good roadies :)

 It's so fun to see all of our people interacting with people who are outside of our "normal" people.
 It changes everyone's heart when we begin to walk out the heart of God toward the less fortunate.

The guys had originally had the idea of having the eggs drop out of a helicopter. And since we "happened" to have access to both a helicopter and a pilot, it seemed that it was all a "go"   Until the day before - after lots of advertising had gone out about the helicopter being there- we had to go with a different pilot who was uncomfortable to how close the drop would be to houses. So, the helicopter was off :(  

Thankfully, the Mooresville Fire Department came thru in a BIG way!!  

with a truck and a long ladder, it's almost as good as a helicopter :)

 LOOK AT ALL THOSE EGGS!!  

and it wasn't even half of them. People from church spread out most of them on the ground on the baseball field they were going to be dumped on, and the firemen only dropped two garbage bags onto the field. It was still super cool to watch!

and then, the kids were off! running to collect as many eggs as possible

 Cadence was big enough to be out on the field with the school age kids. It's crazy to think that our baby girl is a big kid. But she is!! and had SO much fun out gathering eggs. 

 The littles were far less concerned with their egg hunt. 

Thankfully their big sister had enough eggs to share. 

So, the Andersen boys just manned the sound system instead :)

on a personal note, we met some of Shaun and Olivia's biological family at this event. The Lord had somewhat warned me ahead of time - ya know, one of those gut feelings - so I wasn't stunned. But it's still a little hard to process that Olivia has older sisters who are hurting because they no longer have a relationship with their baby sister who they have known since her birth. We don't really know what to do with all of it - if anything - but we know that God is able to do ridiculously more than we could come up with as far as "best case scenarios" and so we will trust His leading if there is anything more that comes of our meeting with their family. 

But if ever there was a time to be reminded of exactly how capable our God is - it's Easter weekend!