Easter!

It's 7:00am.  The Easter Bunny has delivered.

My handsome man...a little bit later.

An old pro at egg hunts!

Sigh...so beautiful! 

The Easter loot...the bunny was good!

School Easter Egg Hunt Day!

Easter weekend was wonderful and busy and a little bit crazy.  Even with all the drama surrounding Colin's anxiety, we managed to make it a happy time and for that I am incredibly thankful!  On Saturday we went to our sweet friend Pierce's 3rd birthday party and I was really proud of Colin.  He did freeze when we first got there, despite the fact that it was held somewhere that Colin knows well and with only his friends in attendance.  But he walked in on his own.  We circled the party and he was clearly upset and avoiding any and all eye contact.  But I whispered to him on several occasions that we could leave whenever he wanted to and he didn't want to go.  He was scared, but he knew that he wanted to be there and was willing to work through it.  We sat off by ourselves for a good while, but after about 45 minutes he snapped out of it and joined every bit of the party.  It's quite a process, but we are so blessed to have people surrounding us that understand and love us no matter what.  Everyone was so supportive and helpful and I just can't put into words how great it feels to be in a group of people that I know are not judging us.  It was absolutely no big deal to anyone that Colin was upset at first and nobody gave us a second glance as we sat by ourselves.  Our friends are a safe place for my whole family and I don't know what I would do without them.  Colin comes across as very angry and volatile when he is panicked and keeps his head down, cries and won't talk when spoken to.  But this is all his defense mechanism.  And I don't have to worry that anyone in my close circle is thinking badly about us.  Even though I don't care what strangers think, it does feel nice to know that I am around people that understand and love us no matter what.  The party was so much fun!  The Roberts family always throw the best birthday parties! 

That night, I spent a couple of hours putting the Easter Bunny stuff together and I packed the eggs with prizes that I found at Dollar General and Target.  I bought everything I could find that was small enough to hide in an Easter egg.  I was determined that Colin get the prize eggs that he was so upset about missing out on.  I think I went a bit overboard, but it was well worth it to see the joy on his face.  He told me a couple of times that the Easter bunny must have known that he had trouble with the egg hunt and sent him special treats.  That made my whole day. 

Colin woke up at the crack of dawn (as usual) and we hunted eggs by the light of the moon.  There was no putting him off when he woke up, of course!  I regretted the decision to let him wear pajamas to bed that are about 8 sizes too small because the pictures of the hunt are not exactly his finest fashion moment.  But, oh well.  ;-)  My skinny peanut can still wear his 3T pajamas and loves them, so who cares.  But they are SERIOUSLY too short now.  I need to buy some new summer ones asap!  Anyway, after the hunt, I whipped up a banana cake with brown butter icing (JOY) and we got dressed to head over to Jer's parents house.  Colin had even more treats waiting there and loved his yearly egg hunt in their backyard.  It rained and stormed all afternoon, but it was still a great day.  There is only one thing that bothers me a bit and that is the fact that we haven't been to church yet with Colin.  I really miss church on Easter Sunday and it reminds me that we really really need to figure out a way to become active church members, but I just don't know how to do it.  Colin has never been able to attend church services because he can't be dropped off in a crowded Sunday school environment.  Church is everything that scares him - a large building full of strangers, lots of noise, being dropped off with different faces, everything that causes his panic rolled into one outing.  It just won't work.  And he can't sit through big church yet, so we have waited.  That was the MAIN reason that I made sure that Colin went to a church preschool.  I thank heaven above that he has been getting a steady stream of christian teaching while going to school.  He loves Jesus and God and we had lots of great conversation regarding the true meaning of Easter.  So I feel blessed that he is getting a chance to learn about Christ even though we can't quite do church yet.  And on another note, is it strange that at 34 years old, I still refer to it as "big church"?  HA! 

Anyway, I really do have lots more to write about and lots of post topics running through my head, but I am going to call it quits for tonight.  I have an episode of Smash burning a hole in my DVR and I must watch it.  But I told myself that I was absolutely not going to put off blogging anymore, so I am patting myself on the back for waiting until after the Easter update.  :-)