A month's worth of Easter

Easter kind of felt like it encompassed the whole month of April, much to my deep satisfaction and joy. All four Sundays were a spiritual feast. Though the main Lamb of God performances had finished, I had been selected to perform the work at the MTC in Provo one Sunday evening, and then again at the Utah State Prison another Sunday. Both of these experiences left me humbled, emotional, and extremely thankful. They just added to the testimony building that had already happened the month before during the traditional Lamb of God concerts. But in addition to those two weekends, we also had General Conference at the beginning of the month...and then of course, Easter Sunday itself. My heart was just so full.

Easter Sunday was indeed lovely. I had filled my home with daffodils, tulips and lilies. All of my children, including our cute married couple who decided somewhat last minute to come down for the weekend, woke up to baskets filled with spring goodies. We dressed in our Easter finery and attended our church meetings which of course, being Easter, were wonderful. I was asked ahead of time to share an experience in Sunday School to do with feeling the Savior's love and had the opportunity to talk a bit about some of the insights I'd had while rehearsing and performing Lamb of God.

Because we were trying to accommodate three family's Easter celebrations (Croft, Braden and DiReda) it was decided to color Easter eggs immediately after church. Two years ago, before Rebekah and Tanner were even engaged and when Julianne and Jordan were dating before her mission, we colored Easter eggs together and took a picture of the event. We decided it would be fun to recreate that picture even down to Brandon in the background drinking out of a water bottle. 

2019

2017

After dying eggs Rebekah and Tanner left to join the Braden's for Easter dinner. Julianne and Jordan stayed for a bit longer but then headed over to the DiReda's extended family celebration already in progress. We made sure to take a picture of them all before they left. It's quickly become one of my all time favorites.

We weren't entirely sure who we'd get for dinner and were completely prepared for a smaller meal of four people or a bigger one of up to eight. By the time I finished cooking our Easter feast a few hours later, we sat down with Bryan, Lilian, Brandon and myself. And it really was a lovely, peaceful meal. (Julianne and Jordan came back and joined us for strawberry shortcake dessert later in the evening.) Truly, it was a beautiful day...a beautiful month full of Easter-like Sundays. What a treat for the month of April.