What a crazy fun easter we had!

We had a great Easter weekend, filled with family, friends, fun, easter eggs, Cadbury mini-eggs, hand and foot, reminiscing, tornadoes, hail and blue skies! Interesting combination, you might say! We started the weekend on Thursday night with a trip up to Greenville, carrying two extra passengers-our 12-year-old niece Ta'lor (who had spent her Spring Break here in Florence) and our 7-year-old nephew, Kendal, who was dying to see his cousins! The whole trip up was actually pretty funny! They, along with Abby and Josh, sang "Sing, Sweet Nightingale" from Cinderella and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star as high as they could possibly go and made tooting noises on their arms-I heard more than I'd ever need to hear in my life on that one car ride!

We stayed in TR with Josh's parents and were joined by Alison and Ryan and their boys. They had been waiting all week for the call that their new baby girl had been born, so they could drive to the midwest and pick her up --their birth mother was due April 6--and they were all stir crazy, so they drove the few hours to hang out with the fam! (They ended up getting a call at 11:00 the next night that she was in labor, so they left at 6 am on Saturday morning to drive the long trip to Arkansas!) Emma Jane is beautiful by the way...I'll post a pic soon..Congrats, guys! We can't wait til you get home, so we can meet her!

Anyway, Friday morning, we trekked to the Shriner's Hospital in G'ville for Phoebe to get Shriner's cast #4 of 6! Hopefully only 2 more and then she'll be able to get her heel cord surgery and we can get movin' on getting this club foot totally on the mend! It's going to be a long road, but Phoebe's a trooper and I'm learning to be;0)

We then headed to Pendleton to stay with Scott (my brother) and Cristy and the fam! We had a fabulous dinner of almost all starches--Cristy just decided to pick all her faves;0)--muffins, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob--oh, and chicken on the grill! It was all delicious and then we taught Scott how to play Hand and Foot--our card game of choice--and he and Josh proceeded to KILL Cristy and me 3 games in a row! Through all this, there were tornado warnings all around us, crazy, windy weather and even some nickel-sized hail! It was a BLAST!

The next morning, we went to Pendleton Town Square for their Easter Parade, small but very cute and we took some fun pics! Town Square is where Josh and I sat the first night we met and talked until 3 in the morning-we even had our special bench there, so we took our picture there with the girls! It was fun to think about how much our lives have changed and our family has grown in almost 9 years!

The park was next, and then we hunted for Easter eggs with Scott's family... AND then we hunted for Easter eggs again and ate with Kevin and Susan (Josh's cousin and our very close friends)'s family before driving home that night to be home in time for Easter Sunday!

Sunday was so fun! I bought the girls matching Easter dresses and even bought myself a new dress as well. We took pictures after church and all was going well until we asked Abby to sit on

the grass and hold her sister, so we could take pictures of the two of them! Talk about meltdown! And the meltdown was just about as cute as a perfectly calm picture! Take a look!

And Easter dinner was at our house, with my grandparents, parents, sister, and Ben and Marleina with their two youngest! Another Easter egg hunt as well! Fun was had by all! And I'm glad for a little REST today...

But let me just say that it was wonderful to be so busy and with so many people we love on this special holiday! I am so grateful for my Savior and all that he has done for me! What a beautiful day Easter Sunday was...and even in the scary weather Friday night, it was actually wonderful to know that our Father in Heaven really is in charge! Life is great!