Easter

If I had to pick my favorite holiday it would be Easter.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas (the decorations are my favorite), but I really love Easter.  As I’ve gotten older and have realized more and more what Easter represents for us it gets better and better every year.  Because of Easter we have Salvation…even though we don’t deserve it. 

I also have a lot of great Easter memories.  Some of my fondest are having a Fowler dinner after church.  We usually went to Aunt Helen and Uncle Laverne’s, but a few times we had it at our house.  I remember hiding eggs for the younger kids in Helen’s front yard.  I’m sure my memory is faulty and I’m only remembering the good times, but I mostly think those Easter’s were warm and sunny….Poor Cade has had more egg hunts in the cold and rain!  But Easter has always signaled the start (hopefully) of warmer weather and sandals!  And I’d be lying if I didn’t say I enjoyed getting a new Easter dress.  Usually the shopping trips included my mom, sister and Grandma.  At the time I know we would all get frustrated with each other, because they were usually marathon days, but I wish I could go on one of those trips just one more time.  I ordered Camryn’s Easter dress online and it wasn’t quite the same….

I also have some not so good memories of Easter.  Easter was the first holiday we had to survive after our first adoption loss.  After we were matched in 2010 one of my first thoughts was I could finally buy another Easter outfit.  When Easter came and we didn’t have a baby it was hard.  I look back at those pictures and I looked and felt miserable.  It was a really hard day.

Then 2011 came around and it was a much better Easter.  We were trying to take lots of pictures that weekend for our new profile books.  I felt happy because I just knew our baby was getting close.  It’s weird to think about that because I just had a feeling, but it was hard not to get discouraged because we had so many no’s during that time period.  But I thought this new profile was the answer….So we staged a ton of pictures! 

Here we were Easter Sunday 2011….April 24.  Can you believe that in 5 weeks and 5 days our lives were about to be forever changed?

Here is a picture of Cade’s 2011 Easter “outfit”….

 Here is his 2011 Easter basket

How things changed by Easter 2012.....

The Easter baskets....

The Easter outfits

I guess for me Easter will always remind me in more ways than one that God works miracles even when we don’t deserve them.  I can’t thank Him enough for these two blessings!