"hoppy" easter!

Harper's bunny drawing welcomed out friends to the celebration

"Hoppy" Easter!!! Easter was pretty early this year, taking place over the first weekend of April, which meant that it coincided with our church's Spring General Conference. It's unusual for Easter to coincide with Conference weekend, which is a time when we hear from our prophet and other church leaders from the actual conference that is held twice each year in Salt Lake City and televised live. 

I absolutely love Easter Sunday.  The excitement of the morning, followed by a special church service with amazing hymns, not to mention new Easter outfits--I love all of these parts of the Easter holiday celebration. Since we don't physically attend church during Conference weekend and instead watch the televised broadcast from our homes, I was kind of bummed to miss the Easter Sunday ritual. But as it turned out, I need not have worried! We had such a fun Easter. 

Some of our little Easter friends

The day began, of course, by opening baskets from the Easter Bunny. Harper only agreed to leave her room to retrieve her basket after we assured her that the bunny was long gone. Later in the morning, a bunch of friends joined us for Easter brunch and an egg hunt in our back yard for the kiddies. Each little kid got a cotton bunny tail to wear, which matched their egg color so they knew to only look for a certain color egg. I was a little worried this plan would go off the rails, but it worked perfectly! Knowing to look for certain colors, the kids then helped each other too. It was really cute and fun.

Little Hunter Cotton-Tail,
hopping down the bunny trail...

The thrill of the hunt

Harper was pretty proud of all her pink Easter eggs.

Then later in the afternoon, when we had finished watching Conference, our next door neighbors did ANOTHER Easter egg hunt for the neighborhood kids.  Harper was over the moon and scored more candy than she could possibly know what to do with!  Lucky for her, she has parents that are willing to help in that department...

The neighborhood girls,
showing off their candy

...And eating some too.

Ending the day watching the last session of Conference with our little crew was lovely and relaxing.  Harper and Hunter got really into the music especially.  It was a "hoppy" day indeed, and I feel grateful that we got to enjoy the sunshine with good friends.  Happy Easter, everyone!

Our little Mormon Tabernacle Choir dancers