Abundance

After briefly enjoying Easter baskets, we herded the kids out the door to church.  After church we made a failed attempt to retrieve an antibiotic from a nearby pharmacy for Joey's ear infection.  Then we spent the day at home with friends, both old and new.

Easter Feast 2011 was scheduled to commence at 2:00PM.  It appears from the picture below that we were about 30 minutes behind schedule. 

Not bad considering there were 11 adults, 12 kids and 5 babies in attendance.  It's hard to do anything on time with a crew heavily weighted in favor of those five and under.  Having Trisha in charge also weights things in favor of being late, probably more than the 17 kids.

This year's feast was enjoyed outdoors on a beautiful, sunny afternoon.

Just before four o'clock and just after a diaper blow out by a one year old (not our kid, for once), a friend who was tracking the weather on his phone, suggested we get the annual egg hunt underway to avoid having our egg hunt in the middle of a thunderstorm.

While the kids waited inside, the dads quickly hid, in plain sight, 150+ eggs all over the backyard.  We released the kids and let the hunt begin.

Brad & Anna H.

Faith H.

Aliyah, Theia, Cayden C., and Annie P.

Aliyah, Ava L., Xandra, Annie P.

Aliyah reaching for an egg.  Does she see the other one just ahead of her?

Theia spying an egg.

Sisters Ellie P. and Annie P. and their daddy Brian with Julie L. in the background

Thirteen of the seventeen kids at our house for the afternoon.

A few things I love about the above picture:
1.  Our idealism in lining up 13 small children for a picture.
2.  Aliyah's grumpy.
3.  Andrew is eating his shirt.
4.  Cayden can't be seen because he's behind the big kids.
5.  There are only three girls actually smiling in the picture.
6.  Nine of the thirteen kids are not even looking at the cameras. 
7.  That Ellie held her baby brother because he was crying.
8.  That the candy contained in 100+ of those eggs was leaving my house. 

Less than 10 minutes after the last picture was snapped from the egg hunt, a torrential down pour soaked the yard.  By that time, we were happily tucked inside munching on dessert and trying to keep the kids from eating all of their newly acquired Easter candy.

It was a good day.  A really good day.  I love when our home is filled with kids and friends and good food and celebration.  It's a tangible, outward reflection of the abudant life Christ died and rose to give us. 

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly."  John 10:10