Happy Easter

What a great Easter.  It's probably the nicest one we've had in a long time - better explain that one.  We normally don't do much for Easter.  I mean, before Ian, Dave and I went to church and sometimes I'd fix lunch for us or something, but that was really about it.  Last year was our first Easter with Ian and my whole family was here.  Definitely nice to have the family around, but Ian was about 6 weeks old and I felt like a completely overwhelmed zombie.  So I enjoyed last Easter, but I didn't REALLY enjoy it.

This year was just really fun.  Yesterday we went to Brent and Stephanie's and hung out with great friends all afternoon.  The kids dyed Easter eggs (great bunch of kids!).  Ian did great even sans afternoon nap.  Just a very fun, relaxed afternoon.  We came home, fed Ian (who was so tired that he barely ate dinner), and got ready for church.  Our sitter came a little before 8, and Dave and I headed over to Sacred Heart.  I normally don't go to vigil services because they are L-O-N-G.  Like, we got there about a half hour early and the service was 2.5 hours.  LONG.  And in the middle of the night, and I like to go to bed like an old person.  But last night was special, for a couple of reasons.  The first, and most important, was that Dave was baptized and joined the Catholic church.  It was a decision that he made last summer when we baptized Ian and made a commitment to raise him Catholic.  We just thought that it was important for him to join as a family thing.  And he'd been going forever, so why not become an official, card-carrying member, secret handshake and everything?

I have to say, I'm so proud of him.  He not only went through RCIA (no short process), but they do full immersion baptisms here.  I think that would've been my dealbreaker, had it been me.  No way would I climb into the Holy Horse Trough in front of a few hundred people!  But he did!  Everything went really well, and it was totally worth 2.5 hours of church to see that.   The second reason is that all of the friends that we'd spent the afternoon with came.  They sat in the pew behind us and it was just really fun having people we actually knew to sit with.  And I have to admit, it was nice to go to church and not try to get seats in the back pew, spending the whole service digging through a diaper bag looking for the bottle/sippy/snack bag/quiet toy...you get the picture. :)

This Easter was also special because last year we didn't really have the Easter bunny come to our house.  Ian was 6 weeks old - what was the point?  This year, the Easter bunny didn't deliver candy, but she managed to find the largest bunny known to man.  Ok, to Emporia.  His name is Bob.  Bob the Bunny.  The Easter bunny didn't want Bob to get dirty during transport, so she used 2 big bags.  Kinda looks like Bob arrived in a body bag.

To appreciate how big Bob is, here is Bob next to me:

Ian with Bob - I can't tell whether he liked him or was terrified of him.

We had Easter lunch at our friends Jami and Kim's house.  Kim was Dave's godfather.  We almost got him the Godfather movie as a thank you, but decided to take them out to a nice dinner in the future as a thank you instead.  Lunch was delicious - ham, scalloped potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, all the good stuff.  Ian had their stairs (we have none) in about 5 minutes and when he wasn't climbing them, he was playing with their kids' Easter loot.  Their youngest, Jake, was so sweet with Ian.  He was on the stairs with me when Ian was climbing and told me that he would tell Ian how to climb down too, but he didn't speak baby language any more.  He also let Ian chew on his dinosaur ball shooter.

Yeah, next year the goal is to visit the Easter Bunny at the mall and actually have some nice Easter pics of the fam.  Baby steps. :)  I hope everyone has had a great weekend!