Parris Family Blog: Easter and all things spring

God blessed us with another beautiful Easter day with our families. We were able to go to my Mom and Dad's church for breakfast, and then to Aaron's Mom and Dad's church for their service. It is such a joy to hear Kayla talk about Jesus dying for our sins and going into heaven. It's amazing to see the world through her eyes. She has such a joy about the little things that we often forget to appreciate.

As you are already well aware, I never feel like we get a good picture of the two girls together. So, I had to throw in this very silly one. I thought it was pretty funny. And since none of the "good" ones were all that good, I had to add this one to make myself feel better!

Some background on the dresses: Kayla basically hated her dress. We tried and tried to find out why. First she said it was because there was no black in the dress. Since when does she like to wear black?? Then she said it was because there was no purple; nice try, there's plenty of purple. Considering we were staying with Aaron's parents, I had no other options. I told Kayla it was this dress or, well, this dress.

When we got to church, there was a little girl, maybe 2 years old, who had on the exact same dress and shoes. After that, and with everyone telling her how beautiful she looked, she whispered to me, "Mommy, I really like my dress now!" What a relief!

Next, Maren's dress was originally worn by Mari (now 10) when she was the flower girl in our wedding, at about Maren's age. Mari had similar curls, so it's really amazing to look at Maren in these pictures. The one below was just too sweet. In our wedding album, we have a picture of me in my wedding dress, holding Mari's hand as she looked up at me, kind of like this.

So after church, lunch, naps and well, I guess that's it, it was time for Easter egg hunting. It was very windy, but otherwise sunny and beautiful. Maren was happy after one or two eggs. Kayla was a ferocious predator, snatching up every egg she could find - even if that meant poaching on her sister's basket.

The girls check out their loot, and go through their Easter baskets as well. I was so excited to have found Lightning McQueen and Sally cars for Kayla. She is addicted to the movie "Cars" right now, so these were a perfect find.

The girls also got tons of bubbles in their basket (thanks, Mamaw!). You can see below that Maren was trying to eat them.

Check out the rapid fire bubble gun. It is so awesome. Kayla was sending the bubbles flying all over the place. It may seem lazy, but it's actually so much less messy, and you don't have your child whining that they can't get the bubbles to blow from a little wand. I highly recommend it!

Peek-a-boo!

The stand-off.

Every year, I think since we've owned a home, we've had some sort of baby animals around our house. We've had kittens, ducks, bunnies, etc. This year...bunnies! We found at least four in our front bushes as Aaron was putting out fresh mulch. The girls were thrilled! Maren would bounce up and down saying, "hop, hop" as she looked at the bunnies. Here's a few pictures of them (and our beautiful new mulch!