Gabbling With The Gersts: Elijah's 1st Easter

Although the little man is still pretty young, we did our best to start some Easter Traditions as a little family during this week. I hope to include more traditions such as making Easter sugar cookies, homemade hot cross buns, and bible verses each night as Eli gets older and more interested in learning about what Easter means! We started this year with dying Easter Eggs! E was definitely more interested in trying to shove the entire egg into his mouth or reaching for the bowls of dye while Mama and Dada had fun dying the eggs!

He's showing off his Chicks Dig Me shirt for the special occasion!

Since Eli started teething,

he's obsessed with his tongue

and we often find him sticking it out just like this!

TOO cute!

Yummy Eggs!

Helping Daddy get started!

He just wanted to play with the fun colored dyes-

we wouldn't let him...

maybe next year :)

E apparently got bored of this egg dying business...

He'd rather just play.

He's making one of his many silly faces here..

The finished eggs!

Daddy+ Mommy+ Elijah= Gerst Fam LOVE!

Eli's 1st Easter Eggs

Elijah's 10 month photo op before Church:

Elijah got to open his first Easter Basket this morning!

It was so fun watching him discover the basket waiting in the living room for him and watching him crawl to it, and pretty much crawl into it. He wasn't sure what to do with most of it, but we enjoyed filming him and taking a few pics of him and his new toys! :)

Eli's 1st Easter Basket

The "candy" in E's eggs- Colored Gold Fish! :)

He sure loved them!

Investigating the loot in his basket

Eli wanted to literally dig in!

He kept trying to stand up, but the basket wasn't sturdy enough to hold him!

Easter Church was a beautiful service full of hope and celebration of Christ's resurrection!

One of my favorite songs we sang today-

If You Have Been Raised

" Son of Light sent meekly from heaven,

kissed on a mountain, goes gently to die;

Sinking, in Death's circumcising,

yet by him Death dying, that we might have life...

If you have been raised, then you are alive,

think on things above, set your minds on Christ.

Seated on the throne, the very Son of God

where angels fear to tread he has already gone.

... if you have been raised.

Christ in you, the HOPE of Glory;

Christ in you, the LORD of Life!"

After an amazing church service celebrating our risen Lord we had our friends Jacque, Andrew and Libby over for a huge and delicious lunch! What a blessing it was to enjoy the beautiful sunny day with friends who are also away from their family.

We spent the afternoon hanging out and attempted some family photos out in the sunshine.

It ended up being a bigger feat then we imagined.

Elijah Hates the sunshine in his face, but he also doesn't realize yet why sunglasses and hats are not only important for basic sun protection and looks-- they also help his very sensitive eyes!

We wondered why every time we tried going outside to take some pics- he began to cry and would bury his face in my chest and rub his eyes. After the 3rd time of attempting pics and trying to play outside... I finally put all the signs together and just figured that he hated the sun in his eyes.

I got a glimpse as to what our summer days will be like...

always worrying about sunscreen, or fretting over if we have a hat and sunglasses with us at ALL times.

To be honest, it makes me nervous.

We've talked about getting our car windows tinted-

guess we need to make this more of a plan- not just "talk"

Anyways... here are some of the photos that somewhat turned out.

If you notice- not once does he have his eyes open... but they're still cute :)

Family Photos- before we changed E and put his hat on