Easter

The Thursday before Easter we packed up, picked up Matt from school, and made the trek to Jacksonville.  We stopped at Sonic on the way for some treats, and Johnny got his first taste of a chocolate malt.  He was trying to get his hands on the whip cream.  It was a brief stay in Jville, but long enough for Tim & Steven to do some serious cleaning and sorting and purging in their parents' garages.  It was Johnny's first visit to Jville, and he was thrilled to be there.  We even squeezed in a visit with the Prewitt's.  As usual, Matt & Mason took off like long lost friends imagining and playing.  They were having fun with Grandpa's metal detector.

We made it back to Austin on Saturday in time to make the Easter Egg Hunt hosted by our church.  They had some fun little carnival type games and the ever popular inflatables up for the kids to enjoy.

The boys gathered a ridiculous amount of eggs.

Johnny wanted those eggs.  He had a ball dumping them out, examining them, and putting them back in the basket again.  And, repeat.  Matt of course examined the contents of all of his eggs and expressed his displeasure with the large amount of tattoos, stickers and plastic trinkets he received in lieu of candy.  Insert motherly speech about the true meaning of Easter.

Sunday we attended a glorious worship service at church; the music and message were outstanding. We then headed out to Bryan & Sarah's for the remainder of the day to fellowship with the family.

Look at those cousins!  And it was Johnathan's first Easter.  Awww.

Will had had enough of the photo session.  He didn't exactly cooperate.  But it made for some good shots.

This is probably my favorite.

Henry and Will were at it again.

With the threat of rain we decided to have the egg hunt indoors.  Eggs were stashed everywhere, upstairs and down.  The kids were chomping at the bit to get in there and find them all.  Matt told me to be sure and hide them really well.  "Make it really hard, Mom!!"

The two Hanks made good use of their time while waiting for us to hide them.  Actually, I think they were doing this while Bryan was laying the ground rules.  So you see how well they were paying attention.
Matt was rather serious.  They all had a great time tearing through the house, and some were more delighted with the money they found in their eggs than others.  There was a big trading session amongst them all after the hunt.  I think Mary Claire walked away with the most peanut butter eggs, Ava went for the jelly beans, Matt wanted money and Whopper eggs.  Henry & Will were already back on the trampoline at this point; they didn't care.

Sarah prepared a beautiful and delicious meal as always.  We were stuffed.  But not too stuffed to enjoy some lemon cake I made!  Yum.

I'm pretty sure Johnathan had a great first Easter.  He enjoyed church, lunch, a nap, playing with cousins, fighting over plastic eggs and shouting with glee with baby Lucy, yummy dinner and plenty of family members to adore him.

The non-stop fun was just too much for Will.  He gave it up on the drive back home.  We all had a blessed day.  I love Easter!