Easter Weekend

We had a wonderful time celebrating Easter this year. Payton is old enough now that he really understood the real meaning behind Easter. I will never forget his precious prayers thanking Jesus for dying on the cross and then rising from the dead for us. There's nothing more gratifying to me than seeing our little boy's love for Jesus shine so brightly. 
Here's a little highlight reel from our weekend festivities...

Dying eggs

Payton loved dying eggs this year as he could finally do it on his own without any assistance. 
Of course everyone had to have their own personalized egg for the Easter bunny to hide...

If you can't read them, from left to right they say "P-Dog, Parker, Mama". Dada's egg is in the second row... sorry Dada. :)

Easter morning, Payton woke up to an Easter egg scavenger hunt. The Easter bunny got creative this year and hide clues inside of the eggs instead of candy and led him on a huge hunt throughout the house to find his Easter basket. He had so much fun searching for the eggs. I sure hope the Easter bunny makes this a new Heckman house tradition!

Here is Payton reading his first clue:

 Here are the remnants of the opened eggs with the clues that were inside:

And here is Payton's Easter basket - complete with a Mario toy!

 Payton and Parker also got gifts from the grandparents including a Target gift card, a life-size "Pat the Bunny" for Parker and a new water football for Payton:

 Time to dig into that chocolate bunny! (Poor thing didn't even live to see dinnertime. Payton and I devoured him!)

After opening all the gifts, we had a few quiet snuggle moments to thank Jesus for the special day:

I had full intentions of taking a photo of this delicious (and SUPER easy) breakfast egg casserole, but it was so yummy I forgot to take the photo until after breakfast. Oh well, you get the idea. Here's the recipe if you want a super easy brunch casserole.

At church we had real live bunnies...

And a not-so-real live bunny...

Plus, Payton got to participate in both egg hunts since we were there for both church services. He thought he was in heaven! After church we went home and rested (e.g. everyone except Payton napped) and then we went to our good friends, The Allinder's for dinner. 

Here's how I spent most of the night...

Here's how the boys spent a good portion of the night...

And this is what I ate after dinner, and maybe another slice the next morning with breakfast. :) Yummy cake, Jen!

One last thing... I was asked to participate in the church service this weekend. I'd love it if you'd take a moment to click on this link and check it out. After the church web site appears, you should be able to just click the play button on the video, or you can choose the Weekend Message titled "Plan B: Shattered Dreams." I come on stage during the song "Amazing Grace."

Happy Easter everyone!!!