Easter Weekend

Easter weekend was special as always.  I love celebrating the resurrection of our Savior!  We are blessed!  Aaron's parents came for the weekend and were able to go with us to church on Sunday.  It's always nice having them here.

 Three generations of amazing Simmons men! 

 Atticus refused to look at the camera for any one of the bazillion pictures I took (with my phone) so unfortunately he's looking away in ALL of them...including this picture of Aaron and Atticus showing us their "rock face"....

 During our Easter service they did several baptisms.  At first I wasn't sure what I thought about that and then during the actual service I was absolutely blown away by how sweet and special it was.  And what an opportunity for those that don't come on a regular basis (but attend on Easter) to see the public expression of such an important biblical principle first hand.  I cried.

 

We made "resurrection rolls" for the first time...I saw this idea on Pinterest (surprise, surprise) and so I thought we had to give it a go....

How to make Resurrection Rolls-  Get crescent rolls, sugar, cinnamon, melted butter, and marshmallows. The marshmallow represents Jesus. You dip him in butter to represent the oils they used on his body after he died, roll him in the sugar mixture to represent the spices used on his body, and wrap the crescent roll around the marshmallow to represent the tomb. After you close the tombs up, put them in the oven for "3 days" and see how Jesus is gone from the tomb when you eat it! 

He has risen!!!

As a note:  next year I will probably use a few mini marshmallows instead of one large marshmallow...they didn't dissolve/melt as well as I would have liked, but I think the little ones would be perfect!  

After service we had a lovely lunch together - I ate way too much.  Aaron and John pressured washed the outside of the house Sunday afternoon and Atticus and Kathy had a blast blowing bubbles in the backyard.  I gave the back porch a much overdue clean-up!    Late Sunday afternoon we joined some friends for a potluck - the food was delicious and the kids went non-stop way into the evening!  Check out Atticus with Isaac, Davey and Gabriel going for a wagon ride!

My boys decided it was the perfect night for a backyard campout!   They pitched the tent, grabbed their sleeping bags and pillows and piled into the tent with the ipad to watch movies under the stars!  They had some special guy-time together and Atticus thought it was the best night ever.... No, they didn't sleep the whole night outside, but a few days later the tent is still up and they've watched a movie inside each night :)

My brother made a surprise visit this weekend as well.  He was driving from Alabama to Virginia for work and made a pit stop in South Carolina!  I think he raided the local Tractor Supply store before he stopped by...It was super cute, he brought a bunch of farmer paraphernalia all stuffed inside a whiskey barrel - Atticus was in hog heaven!!! 

 

 Aaron and I were both fighting over the International Harvester hat - it was awesome!  IH was the company my grandfather worked for his entire life....very cool hat.

 

Loren also picked up some John Deer overalls (long johns) and a John Deer shirt - Atticus kept calling it his reindeer shirt :)  Atticus was happy to model it for us all.

Also down deep in the barrel....some farmer-chic black rain boots, perfect for the tending to the garden, a red tractor and some farm animal toys!  I think he's set...Thanks Uncle Loren!
 

 Always great to see my bro and to catch up on what cool things our kiddos are up to.  Glad his family lives closer to us now, we definitely have seen them more in the past couple of years than we did when they lived in Hawaii!

We had such a wonderful Easter.  My heart is full.