Easter

Once again, I haven't posted in a while and so much has happened, so let's get down to business. First, Easter....

We had a great Easter! We colored eggs on Saturday night. Afterward September made a comment that made me feel like a failure as a parent. She asked, "I understand that part of what we celebrate at Easter is new life (well, it started out all right).....but (you know you're in trouble when there's a "but")....what do eggs have to do with that?" This led to a fun discussion. No, it didn't quite escalate to the birds and the bees.


When we woke up on Easter morning, we came out of our bedroom to find little colored pieces of paper in the shapes of eggs all over the wall. At first I thought Lisa and Kyle had done it, until I went to the bottom of the stairs and found this and realized that it was September's handwriting.

We could hear her and Ember awake in their room so we just figured that they had gotten up early and done it. Nope! They had in fact stayed up very late making all of it, and then set the alarm clock for 2:30! The alarm clock's volume was turned down so it didn't wake them up but September happened to wake up at 2:35 and that's when they got up and did it. I think maybe she should take over the Easter Bunny's duties! They both crack me up how big they are into holidays. As Matthew says, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree!" He's right, I absolutely love holidays....the big and the small.

Here's a close-up of the Corbett's basket. Chocolate for Lisa and Gobstoppers for Kyle. Kyle is known for having a mouthful or so of Gobstoppers at any given time! It's become a big family joke. Then you can also see Kylee's little easter egg I made for her for her "1st Easter". We also got her a little bracelet that would've gone so well with her little Easter dress. But then they all ended up sick that day and I don't think I even got to see Kylee all day on Easter. I still want to get some pictures of her in her Easter dress and if we ever get around to it I'll try and post them.

Peyton got right down to business eating her chocolate!

We had Kyle come and take some traditional Easter Day family pics. He took probably 20 or so to make sure we got a good shot. But when I went to upload them something happened and it only uploaded TWO of them! I was so upset!! And by that time we were all out of our clothes and everyone was a mess. It sounds so dumb, but that's one of my favorite parts of Easter is to buy all the kids new clothes and to get a nice family picture. That way we at least have ONE every year. Well, neither of them were ones that were all that great. But this one turned out to be the best of the 2.

Then of course I had to do my usual photo shoot with the kids. They were all really good sports about the whole thing even though it was a pretty chilly day....except for Peyton. She was in an ornery mood at the time and so I didn't even attempt to take any pictures. I was hoping to get some later when she decided to be happier and we just got busy.

We did our traditional Easter egg hunt for the kids after church and even though all the kids enjoyed themselves, it was Peyton who was the most excited. She's at such a fun age for it and she just could not get enough. It's so great to see the small things that give little children so much joy!

That night as we were on our way to dinner with Matthew's family, I received a phone call from my sister informing me that a friend of ours had been shot and killed the day before. This was a kid that we had been friends with during our teenage years. He was a foster child living with one of our neighbors. He had had a really rough life and as a consequence had gone on to make some bad choices in his life and he had been in and out of prison. I hadn't had contact with him in years and didn't know all of that until after I'd heard about his death. He had just gotten out of prison last year and had been working really hard to turn his life around. In the last couple weeks of his life he had started feeling very overwhelmed and depressed and it led to an incident that ended up with police officers at his house and in the end he was gunned down by the police. The media twisted the whole story and made him out to be such a monster and I was extremely upset by some of the comments that people left online in response to the articles. Deep down he was a good guy with a good heart, he just had a tough life and had made bad choices. It was extremely bittersweet to receive the news about his death on Easter. It soured a day that had been otherwise very fun and uplifting. BUT, I couldn't help but think about our Savior and his Atonement and how much it related to this situation. It made me that much more thankful for my Savior and the sacrifice he made for all of us. I know that I will see him again and I know that he is finally at peace, and that leaves me at peace just knowing that.