Well, I think life is back to normal after the long weekend. We love Easter, and we anticipate how busy and full it will be every year… yet we’re still surprised at the end of it all to find how hard it is to drag ourselves out of bed on Monday morning. Even the girls slept in this Monday, and that never happens!

The weekend officially began with Ana’s lunchtime Bible story on Friday. I read the crucifixion story to her, telling her about how this was a special day, and pointed to the picture of Jesus on the cross, asking her who was being crucified for her sins. Her answer? A very enthusiastic, “PAPA!” Easter weekend could only get better from that point on, folks.

Friday evening, we were part of a very powerful and moving Good Friday service. Our church hasn’t done Good Friday services in the past, and Wes had to move a senior adult event off the calendar to make it happen. (Our senior adults have a GREAT program, with socials and fellowships every other Friday. Wes goes to most of them, and they kept him out until 11pm one night!) It was a wonderful time for our church family, and one very young man (six years old!) came to Christ.

By Saturday morning, both sets of our parents had come into town, along with my sister and her family. The guys spent their time assembling the girls’ early birthday present from Wes’s grandmother — a super huge playset for the backyard! Wes has been spending every free moment working on it, and Ana has been joining him outside, inspecting it as he works. I can’t wait to watch her and Emma playing in that little playhouse!

All of us “womenfolk” attempted to do the Resurrection Cookies with the girls on Saturday night. I learned a couple of things. Our girls are probably too little to understand the story and examples that go along with the recipe, and it would be way more effective if the egg whites actually turned into meringue (is that how that’s spelled?) instead of just a frothy goo. Oh, well. As my mother said, it will be better next year, they’ll understand more, I’ll probably figure out the recipe in the meantime, and we DID start the tradition. Even if the cookies were totally flat. (Won’t it be fun when the girls are teenagers, WAY better cooks than their mommy, and can tell the story themselves as they make the cookies? Sigh. I can’t wait!)

Bright and early Sunday morning, Wes and I left for the sunrise service, leaving our sleeping babies at home with my parents, who came over to help out. Don’t know what the weather was like in your part of the world, but it was COLD in Oklahoma. It was a great event nonetheless, and by the time I got home, the girls were awake and had discovered the baskets that Mommy and Papa left for them. Thanks for all of your Easter Bunny advice! We were pretty certain what we were going to do but didn’t know how to go about it. I think we’ve decided to gift our girls with an “Easter Bunny” gift on Easter morning, something that will help them grow closer to God. (This year, they received pink Bibles with their names printed on the front.) I think we’ll let them know that the gifts are from us but that other boys and girls like to pretend that an Easter bunny leaves the gifts and that we don’t want to ruin the surprise for them by telling them that he’s not real. Same goes for Santa. I know a lot people will think we’re nuts for this, but we think it’s right for us.

After a great Easter morning service (a packed house!), we all came back for a cookout and an egg hunt. It took Ana a while to figure out what she was supposed to be doing with the eggs, but once she figured it out, she was really excited!

And that was pretty much Easter weekend for the Faulks. We hope your weekend was equally blessed!