Who forgets to get the camera out on Easter?!

Me. But I brought it with me on Saturday!

We went to Rob's sister Stephanie's house for a day-before-Easter get together. Rob's parents weren't feeling well, so they didn't come. And Rob's older sister Brigette's kids were visiting their dad, so it was just a few of us this time! But we had a good time.

Of course we ate ham and potatoes, and we had some yummy Jello cake. Rob's mom sent over some Easter baskets for the kids, which they really liked!

It sprinkled a little, but the grass was still dry enough to play outside. The weather was actually really good. I spent some quality time in the hammock.

Rob and Scott played horseshoes for a while. Robbie kept wanting to go get the horseshoes for them, though... yikes...

They had the kids sit on the pit until they were done throwing, and then they would take off for the other pit to go check out the horseshoes.

Erin had a nice time playing with her youngest cousin, Sydnie. Here they are with Brigette:

And we all had fun playing with Smokey. Smokey is deaf, but he knows quite a bit of sign language. I'm always impressed with how much he knows and how well he "listens"! He's a good dog. Scott taught Erin a few signs so she could talk to him. Robbie LOVES animals, and he especially enjoyed getting all Smokey's dog toys out.

Easter was nice. The Easter bunny came, of course, and the kids found all the eggs pretty fast. Erin gave a talk in Primary, and my parents came over to see it. They stayed for the last hour of church, and then we had roast/potatoes/carrots at our house for dinner. We were glad they came over! I told them they could peek in on Robbie's nursery class if they wanted to kind of spy on him and see him in action. When they did, he just happened to be facing right at the window, and they could hear him announce, "That's my Grandpa!!" Oops. He was a happy boy.

As my parents were leaving, my dad had an experience with a "friendly lizard" as Robbie calls it. This crazy lizard lept off the wall, ran across Rob's bare toes, and up my dad's pants leg (on the outside, thank goodness). Then it disappeared for a while! It was nicely camoflauged with his gray pants. Rob found it hiding under Dad's belt loop and then it moved down by his back pocket. When it was in um, a better location, I caught the thing and the kids had fun holding him. He was definitely friendly.

I was glad Erin was assigned a talk, because preparing it gave me a little extra time to think about what Easter is really about. Her topic was "I can live with Heavenly Father and Jesus again". So I got to think about the Atonement and Resurrection in very simple terms. And that's really what it comes down to! Jesus made it possible for us to overcome obstacles that we can't overcome on our own. I'm thankful for the gospel and for this time of year that we really focus on it.