New Life

Easter has always been very special for us.  Pivotal to our faith, of course.  Plus, Scott and I got engaged very, very late on Easter Sunday in 2008.  New life for us began that day in so many ways.  So appropriate for Easter Sunday. Then Easter Sunday 2 years ago, Scott said "I'm willing" to moving forward on this crazy journey to 5 Peruvians.  So this Easter Sunday was pretty special.  New life.... and they live in my house!!!  Nuts!
So I'm not a fan of making every holiday about gifts and we certainly don't have cash growing on our trees...but Easter Sunday is special.  We talked about La Dia de la Resurreccion a lot beforehand.  Peru celebrates Holy Week in some capacity and our kids know about Jesus and the resurrection. But I'm not sure they understood why we make a big deal out of these days (like being out of school Good Friday) so it required a lot of conversation.
It was fun to give a small gift and let the kids try American Easter candy.  I bought things I don't even like, including Peeps, just so they would understand what their friends were talking about with Easter baskets, jelly beans, and cadbury eggs.

Then that evening, the kids had a fabulous surprise!  St. Mary's, a hospital in Blue Springs, contacted me a few weeks earlier and wanted to adopt our kiddos for Easter.  I tried to give a few different options for the kids of different $ values unsure of what they were wanting to do.  They did more than I could have imagined!
Each kid had a basket full of something specifically fun for them---fishing poles and tackle, itunes gift cards and an iHome, chess book, other books... I could go on and on!  Laney has been wearing her princess garb for days!  And to top it off, they received 3 bikes.  2 were specifically chosen for 2 of the kids and 1 that I'm sure we will all share!  They truly went above and beyond! We even received a family gift for all 9 of us to go to a Sporting KC game (which I'm super excited about because the boys have been :) AND an individual family got me a sweet gift.  We felt truly loved and blessed!

"And He who was sitting on the throne said, 'Behold, I am making all things new....Write this down for these things are trustworthy and true'. "

Revelation 21:5