Easterly.

When I was a kid, every Easter my brothers got outfitted for new Sunday clothes - ties, suits, shirts, the works.  And as the only girl, she went all out searching for an Easter dress with accessories to math.  Hats, shoes, I was certainly a vision at least once a year.  And then after church, before the egg hunt, there was the posing.  The picture of my mom's hard work.  It's really neat to have those pictures to look back on, and as a mom now - I am in even more awe of her.  That was NOT an easy task, and not a cheap one either, but she made it happen.

I would love to carry on the tradition.  But my kiddos are still so young that the outfits don't always last through church, and they are not the most camera-friendly. So this year's attempt was.. well, at least it was better than last year when they ended up rolling around the driveway.  I think Forster was crying.  Also, I still haven't bought an Easter dress on my own for Solei, since my wonderful mom has dress-hunting skills.  And dresses with SLEEVES.  Do you know how hard it is to find dresses for little girls with sleeves on them??  In fact, last year she found a whole bunch in one place and bought up a ton for the next few years as well.  But there weren't any in her current size with sleeves, so she got one with a lovely black jacket to go over it.

Then last week, I lost my head and decided to add sleeves onto it.  It was a mad, crazy idea given my poor sewing skills, but I had to try.  If it turned out too terrible, there was always the jacket!

Not too bad, right?  As long as you stand a few feet away.  Maybe there's hope for dresses yet!  I'm lucky that no matter how crazy my projects look, Solei is always willing to wear them :)

Now, to the pictures.

Due to a misunderstanding and me being insane, I sewed baskets for them this year AGAIN.  The contents were the important part, right?  Kudos to Jared who stayed up late on Saturday night with me, sewing snaps onto them.  Yes, I'm insane.

Forster.  Nothing fancy, what with him being rough on clothes.  He also got blood on his shirt during church (nose AGAIN, blah!) so I wasn't too heartbroken about not getting him a fancy Gucci suit or something for the occasion.

Solei requested I curl her hair.  Having a girl rocks.

Here are all my attempts at a memorable Easter picture.

Here was the winner - no shoes, pacifier in - whatever, I can see both their wonderful faces.  Besides, if they looked perfect I wouldn't recognize them :)

And here's Solei showing off the reason for the day.  Just kidding - although they GORGED themselves on sweets and loved it.  The real reason lies in a talk Solei gave yesterday in Primary.  Jared was wonderful enough to record her doing it later and added pictures.  When she wrote the talk, she had the Gospel Art book on her lap and used it as a guide - and Jared added those to it.  Awesome!  Hope you were able to enjoy a wonderful Easter!  Enjoy!!!