Most years since we have lived here, our church has volunteered and helped with the Easter Parade and Festivities at Zona Rosa. We did the same this year. Somehow, I'm not quite as big of a help as I used to be with two little kids. There was a local dog shelter there as well walking dogs and trying to get people interested in adopting them, so Josiah was just chasing dogs all day long. If I turned my head for a second, he was off chasing a dog. "Moe Dog Mommy. Moe Dog." Both kids really enjoyed the parade though. See how Addi was not sitting on the towel? I laid it out all nicely, specifically for her and her white pants since it rained earlier that day...and she absolutely refused to sit on it. Everyone around us got a kick out of it.
Sunday morning we started the morning off with Resurrection Rolls. It was so amazing to see how involved our kids were. They both really enjoyed helping put the rolls together (rolling their marshmallow in butter and cinnamon/sugar, sealing the 'tomb') and when they came out of the oven, Addilyn was amazed "Jesus is out of the tomb! He's not there!!" She instantly got it. Totally understood it. I was so glad we decided to just do this and not have Easter baskets and eggs out for them when they woke up. Completely put the focus where it needed to be. Addilyn talked about it rest of the day.
After church and naps, they did get to see their Easter baskets and having an Easter egg hunt in our backyard (trying to go low sugar on Easter is hard... I filled their eggs with organic fruit snacks, Annie's chex mix, and marshmallows. Not sugar free but better than all candy). Addilyn's a hard core Easter egg hunter and Josiah really enjoyed finding 'balls' and throwing them all over the place. Addi was trying to be nice and 'save' some for Josiah but eventually we told her not to worry about it. :)
We got a random text while the kids were napping asking what we were doing for dinner and if we'd want to come over to grill and do an Easter egg hunt. It was kind of amazing. I hate being away from my family and my kids not getting to see their cousins on holidays but having friends welcome us in as family was pretty amazing. God is working. He knows where He has us and how to take care of us. This time, everything clicked for Josiah. He totally understood to 'hunt' the eggs and put them in his bag. I didn't even need to point them out to him. Addilyn was like a big kid-out on her own, counting her eggs to make sure she didn't have more than the alloted 20. Both the kids were a little excited about real candy in their eggs this time. You could hear Addilyn squealing everytime she opened an egg. Josiah ate a few pieces of candy then had fun trying to re hide his egg in one of Mrs. Crystal's pots.
This was the first major holiday since we've gotten far in our adoption journey and I could literally visualize little brown sugar babies sitting there with our white sugar babies, making silly faces, smiling, and in their Easter best all as a family together. And it was pretty awesome. Might not happen for awhile, but it's becoming real. When I was pregnant that not quite real phase that so many people talked about never happened for me, I was too sick to 'forget' I was pregnant. But, in adoption with no visible signs it takes awhile for it to feel real, at least for me. But each day it's more real and we're more excited.
