Jesus is Risen- let's WALK to celebrate :)

Zanna really took off with walking today, Easter day,...she had been toying with it all weekend long (see the previous video "walking") but today, she walked and walked, and walked and walked and walked.... it was incredible! Life has officially changed forever!

The Easter Dress

Zanna has had this dress in her closet since before she was born, and I was so excited for her to wear it on Easter this year. It has a very special story behind it and is an "international" dress!
Last November, PHPC (my home church) went on a mission trip to Nicaragua. My pastor and mentor, Elizabeth, and one of my best friends, Sarah, were thinking about Zanna while they were on their trip and when they saw this dress at a Nicaraguan market, they bought it for her! THANK YOU SARAH AND ELIZABETH! It's beautiful!
We had such an incredible Easter day today! We went to worship together (well, I was at the front helping lead worship and Zanna and Cam sat together :)) and then our great friend Rebecca came over for "Christmas Casserole" (though I'm thinking we should re-name it "Chreaster Casserole" cuz we eat it Christmas AND Easter these days) and an afternoon egg hunt. We invited some of the kids from the block over for a late afternoon hunt, but.... they were no-shows, so our friend Calum (Cam's best friend Darrell's son) had a blast finding the 75+ eggs that were crammed into our front yard on his own :) We spent hours in the front yard hanging out and playing with Easter eggs (which Zanna thinks are the greatest invention!). It was a glorious Easter spent with family and friends!!
Christ is risen, he is risen, indeed! :)

Bookworm

Last year, Grammy and Poppy came to visit at Easter and brought Zanna some Bunny books. This one is called "My First Easter" and Zanna really likes the pictures in it. We had fun reading Easter books and playing with Easter eggs yesterday. Zanna is like her mom and dad, she really loves to read. She often pulls off every book on her bookshelf and looks through all of them. She is particularly fond of Goodnight Gorilla and Goodnight Moon. She makes all of the animal sounds in Goodnight Gorilla and lives for finding the mouse with his banana on every page, and in Goodnight moon, she LOVES the little old lady whispering "Hush" and puts her hand up to her mouth saying "sssshh" and then laughs. She also knows where the two little kittens are on every page. It's fun to read with her!

Baby Sign book reading

Zanna LOVES her baby sign book and knows all of the signs from it. Here she is reading it to Mimi and Mommy one day a few weeks ago.

Walking!

The Many Moods of Zanna

My friend Jenny posted a similar blog of her daughter Josephine's many moods, and I didn't want her to feel alone :) These were all snapped by Cam with in a matter of seconds... as you can tell, she has a lot of emotion for one little girl! I'm thrilled that our usual mood is the first :) What a winning smile!

The Chickens' New Home...

The coop is finished! It's a masterpiece!
Cam and Uncle Bear (Jeremy) worked very hard on it over Palm Sunday weekend! They even painted it red at my special request :) (I wanted it to look like a little red barn!)
I tried to get the coop from many angles; it's supposed to be a "moving coop" so you can see where the chickens can hang out during the day and then where they roost etc.
The 4 chicks are getting bigger and will be ready for their coop in just a few weeks! They're currently living in our kitchen in the cat's crate... Let the adventure begin!

Zanna and her friends...

As I said previously, Zanna goes over to Olivia's house on Fridays while I'm at work. Olivia's little brother is Thomas, who is 18 months old. Zanna and Thomas are very good friends now, and they look forward to spending time together on Fridays! We are so blessed that their family, and fantastic babysitter Yolanda, let Zanna come over every week to play and be well-taken care of! Zanna also has a Z-friend at church; Zoe. Zoe LOVES babies and always wants to play with Zanna and the other babies at church. She is very good with children and Zanna adores her! They had a great time being silly together. We feel so blessed to be at a church with such caring families! We love FPC!

Love those eggs....

As you can see, Zanna loved looking at her eggs and her friends more than the camera :)

The Hunt!

We went to church for the Family Easter Picnic and Egg hunt. Lots of Zanna's friends were there (more pics of them later!) and she had a wonderful time hunting for eggs on the Day School playground... she thought it was SO much fun! Her friend Olivia is helping her find eggs in the last picture. Zanna goes to play at Olivia's house every Friday while I'm at work. Olivia is a very good helper with Zanna, and Zanna thinks she is just the BEST! :) Happy hunting!