Easter hoo-ha!

How absolutely fabulous was it that Easter Sunday and Conference weekend coincided this year? I loved it! What better way to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ then to hear the testimonies of His prophet and apostles concerning the reality of that very event? I loved all the talks and I have never had a Conference Weekend where my questions were so directly answered and my fears so directly addressed. It felt like many of the speakers were talking to me face to face. Something that Elder Bednar said really resonated in my heart:

"The spiritual understanding you and I have been blessed to receive, and which has been confirmed as true in our hearts, simply cannot be given to our children. The tuition of diligence and of learning by study and also by faith must be paid to obtain and personally 'own' such knowledge. Only in this way can what is known in the mind also be felt in the heart. Only in this way can a child move beyond relying upon the spiritual knowledge and experiences of parents and adults and claim those blessings for himself or herself. Only in this way can our children be prepared spiritually for the challenges of mortality."

Oh, how that phrase "tuition of diligence" has stayed with me! If the church didn't seriously frown on tatoos, I would tatoo it on my forearm. That tuition is not just for children...it is for all of us. Testimony needs daily feeding, diligent and careful nurturing, to be strong. Even the everyday tasks of life require diligence! We must pay diligence her daily due if we are to enjoy the spiritual and temporal blessings that we seek. Our actions show the Lord we are serious about being His disciples and that we greatly desire His help and blessings. Here, this thought just occurred to me...the Lord told Adam that "by the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread all the days of thy life." This refers to work and it's rewards, but what if we considered it to mean spiritual work? We are diligent, we work, and the Lord's blessing is bread: "And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." (John 6:35) We come unto Christ by being spiritually diligent, and He saves us from sin and death. In Him we will find all the spiritual food we will ever need, and our souls will be satisfied. But, I digress...Conference was wonderful!

Easter brought flowers to my house.











I made the table runner from a too small table cloth and some extra fabric while I was watching "The Ten Commandments" (and a bit beyond it's end to be honest). That show cracks me up! Charlton Heston's hair is it's own character and deserves it's own credit at the end of the movie. I love how Nefritiri says, "Moses!" with so much drama and pathos. Oh, they don't act like that any more! (And that is probably a good thing!)

Mom, Dad, Heather, and Jeannine came to eat dinner with us. We had SO MUCH good food, and just to be different (and to make dinner more meaningful), we ate lamb for our main course. It was very yummy! All we needed was Charlton Heston at the dinner table intoning the word of the Lord to make our meal complete. Too bad he's dead. I wonder if they buried him with a gun in his hands? Am I confusing you? You should get out more.

After dinner we had our Easter egg hunt. We actually had the kids dye eggs this year, which I always did as a child but was never brave enough to have my kids do. We dyed a total of nine eggs...
and then the rest were plastic and filled with candy and quotes from scripture and the prophets about the resurrection of the Savior. We read through the quotes while the kids ate their treats and had a wonderful time. Here are some Easter egg hunting scenes.

The hunt is on! Merritt collected so many eggs that he filled his stegosaurus basket to the brim and then spent the rest of the time helping Grace and Grant.

Grant was super excited to find the eggs. Every time he spotted one he'd squeal "EGG!"

Grace loved her bunny basket almost as much as she loved finding eggs full of candy!

Things really got interesting when Grant threw an egg over the fence to the neighbor's dog. Ling-Ling promptly chewed open the plastic and scarfed the Kit-Kat or Wonka Golden Egg (whatever was in there) complete with wrapper. I tossed Merritt over the fence to retrieve the egg before Ling-Ling decided to eat that too. The goofy dog thought Merritt had come over to play and only by distracting her with a dog biscuit (which Jeannine keeps us stocked with so the kids can treat the dog) did we get that darn egg out of her mouth. Thankfully, Ling-Ling survived her encounter with Easter candy, though I'm sure her owner's were surprised when she pooped out the plastic wrapper!

Finally...I know I've already done a wacky weather post, but SERIOUSLY! Mother Nature is off her meds or something! I woke up on Tuesday morning to this...
That is 8 INCHES of snow people. Sure it was 95% melted by Wednesday afternoon but I shoveled snow in April. (Chad would have shoveled but he was in Omaha - where they were enjoying a heat wave.) Blah!