Easter

He is risen!!  Praise Jesus!  We have a family tradition to watch The Passion during Easter.  This year instead we watched The Bible series on the History channel which I thought was great.  You read about those stories in the bible but for whatever reason that series seemed to really make it come to life for me.  Even though you can't truly know what it was like to be in the presence of Jesus crucifixion, my heart is always extremely softened when I watch what He went through for us.  It's humbling.  As a new mom, this year my emotions were on a whole new level because I tried to put myself in Mary's shoes and imagined what it was like for her to watch her son go through what He did.  I had tears running down my face as I thought about how much I loved Caleb and I just wanted to run up to Mary in the movie and just give her the biggest hug!

We also headed over to Dave's parents house on the east side of St. Paul.  I must say Caleb did much better this holiday.  Unlike Thanksgiving, we were able to get through the meal without him crying.  However back then I was starving him apparently so I would've been a little crankers too.  There was no need to be upset though this time with all those snuggles and kisses from Grandma La!!  Family time always warms the heart, we are blessed to have such great families.  The food was stellar as always...thanks Grandpa Mike and Grandma La for the delicious smorgasbord.  Hope everyone had a great Easter and I hope you all remembered the reason for the season!

Speaking of that I was a bit down this past week because I was talking to a friend who went to Guatemala over Easter and he mentioned that they really celebrate Jesus down there during Easter.  It's not about the Easter bunny and Easter eggs, it's about celebrating what Jesus had done for us.  They have parades and floats of the last supper and people carry those floats through the streets.  They celebrate the joy of knowing He will return some day.  I thought about it and realized how Easter is the most important day of the year for me and I wondered why we don't do that kind of celebration here in the United States?  Maybe there are some places but I have never seen any or heard about any here.  I thought about how for St. Patrick's Day millions of people get all dressed up and celebrate with parades and such....even people who aren't Irish.  Why don't we do that for Easter?  I'm not judging at all when families do Easter bunny pics or Easter egg hunts.  I have great memories of my Grandpa helping me find Easter eggs when I was little because I was the youngest in the group and couldn't run as fast as everyone else.  Plus I dressed Caleb up this year like a little bunny...it was fun and cute!  It was really just a realization to me that next year I want to CELEBRATE and make an even bigger deal out of Easter so we can show Caleb how important this holiday really is!  Let me know if you have any fun Easter traditions that revolve around Jesus, I'd love to hear your ideas.