Easter 2013

We celebrated Easter this year with a variety of kid-friendly traditions and fun events -- it's so sweet to watch Joshua grow in understanding of some of these traditions and take part with such enthusiasm!

Just to start things off on a cute note: here's my favorite of the "official" Easter photos I took of Joshua and Sophia.  :)


The kids and I have been part of a wonderful playgroup of Christian families with kids all around the same age for the last several months -- Joshua looks forward to going to Elliot's house every Thursday now!  So the Thursday before Easter, we spent time decorating eggs with the kids and talking about ways we can teach our children about the resurrection.  I always come away from these playdates with much food for thoughts -- which is seriously impressive, given the amount of crowd control and distraction that comes with wrangling all these small children!  :)

It was Joshua's first time decorating eggs, and he was fascinated by the process.  The moms did the dying part in the middle of the dining table (out of reach of curious little hands!), and then the kids used markers, stickers, and stamps to decorate the eggs.  Of course, Joshua kept turning to me every few minutes to ask me to wipe his hands... I have no idea where he gets this fastidious bent.  ;)






Then on Easter Sunday, after a lovely morning service at Westerly, we had a potluck dinner with our Sunday small group.  And we had a little Easter egg hunt for the toddler boys.  :)








The baby girls were a little less enthusiastic about the egg hunt...



...but still incredibly cute.  :)

We had a really lovely dinner together -- it's funny how we all collectively pull out all the stops whenever there's a food event!







And we managed to get one decent group shot of all of us!  (Including special guests Tae and Jeff, in town for a visit!)


We're so thankful for the wonderful community we have here in Princeton, and all the beautiful ways we were able to celebrate the resurrection with our family and friends.  He is risen indeed!

Caleb's 2nd birthday party!

Back in mid-January, we got to attend the second birthday party for Joshua's little buddy Caleb!  Last year, the boys had a joint birthday party -- they were born only nine days apart, and we just had to capitalize on the fact that we had independently chosen names that went together so well.  ;)  [Side note: I cannot believe how much bigger our boys are a year later!!]  This year, we had separate parties, but you better believe we weren't going to miss little Caleb's birthday celebration!

Andréa and Erik created a wonderful construction-themed party in their Butler apartment -- bright yellow decorations, a full wall-sized construction scene to color, printed out construction signs all over the walls, and a truly awesome dump truck cake.  And, of course, toy cars and trucks galore!








Caleb actually understood how birthday cakes and candles worked, and was able to blow out his own candles.  Very impressive for a two-year-old!




And Caleb's baby brother Joel totally joined in on the festivities.  :)


Joshua had a blast playing by himself with Caleb's trucks and begging for bites of cake from other people's plates...  We're working on teaching him better party manners!




All in all, we had a wonderful time celebrating Caleb's second year of life!  Happiest of birthdays to you, little buddy!

Greg's 40th birthday party!

The next major "event" from this fall was our dear friend Greg's surprise birthday party.  Earlier this year, Greg helped plan a surprise baby shower for his lovely wife, Aime, so she decided to return the favor with a surprise birthday party for him.  Surprisingly (hehe), both parties were actually surprises to the guests of honor -- they're both either really sneaky party planners, or really gullible guests.  ;)

Joshua was unfortunately under the weather that weekend, so he and David had to stay home.  But there were tons of other little kiddos to play with at the party -- as well as good food, good friends, and great conversation!














And one shot of Greg's family members who came into town to celebrate his birthday with him:



Happy birthday again, Greg!  Wishing you a richly blessed and joy-filled next forty years!

Easter with our small group!

Just one more Easter catch-up post!

We had a lovely Easter dinner with friends from our Sunday night small group.  Good food, good friends, good times...  :)  The majority of my photos from the evening are of the kiddos -- they're just such fun models!










Hope you all had as lovely of an Easter as we did!