Baby's First Easter

March 31, 2013 was Asher's first Easter.  At only 9 months old, he really isn't old enough to have an understanding about the holiday, but we still wanted to celebrate it with him, which means a couple of things: Going to church to hear about what Easter is all about (like we do every Sunday), and hunting for the eggs and basket that the Easter Bunny hid in the house the night before.  Since we wake up no later than 7am these days, the latter was first on our agenda for the day.

As I said, Asher is only 9 months old, and the Easter Bunny obviously knew that, because he kept things pretty simple for our little guy.  Asher had one basket to find and six plastic Easter eggs (one of each color), and they were all "hidden" in the living room.  Here are a few pictures of what we found when we came downstairs:

Asher has never really had to look for something before (at least not something that we actually wanted him to find), so we had to help him out a bit.  To start him off in the right direction, we pointed him toward the first egg.  Once he "found" it, we opened it up for him and showed him its contents which included a few puffs (his favorite!).  After that, Asher got the hang of Easter egg hunting pretty well.  He was a baby on a mission, and with a little extra help, found all 6 eggs.

Our baby bunny.

Someone spied the next egg...

"Yea, I found another one!!"

2 Videos: Asher Finds Some Eggs

As he continued his search for eggs, he found the "main event" (as Eric called it), hiding behind the coffee table.

Emma looks pretty bummed in this picture that she doesn't have a basket to find, but Asher looks pretty happy about his find!

At least we thought he was excited by the basket & its contents...apparently though he was really just excited about the basket's grass.

Since Asher has not had sweets yet, the basket was not a standard basket (ie NO candy).  Instead, he was surprised with a container of puffs, a puzzle, some cups, some yogurt drops and a couple of books (one of which was The Tale of the Three Trees...a perfect book for this holiday!). 

Eric & I were also given baskets by the Easter bunny, but unlike Asher's our baskets had a bit (ok, a lot!) of candy in them.

Asher figuring out where this piece to his new puzzle goes...in his mouth of course!

After we had found all of the eggs and baskets, phase two of Easter Sunday began: church.  Since I had to sing on the worship team (and had sound checks before church), Eric was left with the responsibility of getting Asher bathed.  To help him out, I came home just a few minutes before church started to help him get Asher dressed in his Easter Sunday best (thank you Petersens!)  Then, we took a quick family photo, just in case Asher ruined his outfit before we could get home and take some more.

Thankfully, that was not the case, and we were able to get a bunch more photos of our little guy in his adorable linen suit!  :)

After the Easter photo shoot, we changed Asher out of his fancy duds and into some Easter-ly maize & blue, in honor of the obvious and the University of Michigan's March Madness game that day.  Then we put our little guy down for a nap, while we enjoyed the game.  Before the game was quite over, we loaded up the van and headed to Crystal Lake to celebrate the holiday with Aaron, Erika, Micah, Caleb and Erika's family at their home (listening to the rest of the game on the way).  We had a good time playing with the kids and eating some yummy foods.  Thank you Aaron & Erika for having us...thanks also for giving me an excuse to make some mint chocolate chip cheesecake...I enjoyed it all week long!  :)

Asher in his Easter-ly/Michigan gear.

Asher & Eric playing with Micah's punching bag.  Asher was quite interested in it until it moved toward him and then he wanted nothing to do with it.

Asher was slightly grumpy all day long and at A&E's house, I think he was a bit overwhelmed by all of the unfamiliar people and surroundings.  Because of this, he was pretty clingy while we were there, but oddly he was clingy to Eric rather than me...I think Eric liked that.  :)

Asher gets a shoulder ride (he always laughs at first though, because his butt is ticklish!)  :)

Caleb wanted a shoulder ride too! :)

Ahhhh!!!

Asher & Eliza.  She is 2-1/2 months older and about the same size (if not smaller!)

Well, that was our first Easter with our little guy.  It was a great day, and I look forward to the Easters to come, when we can start to teach Asher what the day is all about.