Easter, church, toilet paper birthday cakes and such.

With everyone being sick this year ...again, we won't be going to church for Easter Sunday services. It bums me out. As a Christian, I want to be able to go to church and fellowship, but the last few years has not been really conducive to us attending. I'm hoping that as the dehoarding progresses, our daughter's anxiety issues and our overall health improves that we'll be able to find a church we like and go on a regular basis.

Tomorrow, we will read the Easter Story to the girls and have time together as a family. We won't be having a traditional Easter dinner like usual. Instead, we'll be having Chinese takeout. We'll be celebrating our oldest daughter's birthday as well as Easter, and Chinese is her favorite food. So we'll be celebrating a little unconventionally this year.

The girls will still get their baskets. They like the candy. They know that we put the candy in their baskets and that the Easter Bunny isn't real. In fact we don't even mention EB We just fill their baskets (or whatever they would know was theirs-this year we used a purse and a jewelry box) with candy. We made the decision to let them know the truth about the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus when they were fairly small. We didn't want them to one day think that because the Easter Bunny and Santa weren't real, that Jesus must not be real either.

Just a quick note here...we in no way judge anyone who wants to celebrate their holidays with the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. It's a very personal decision. We made ours knowing that our daughters will never be over a certain point developmentally, and we felt that we needed make a decision that was best for our family, and our family alone. A typical child can come to the realization that the EB and SC are wonderfully fun traditions, but we just wanted things less confusing for our children who might not get the difference between the two. So they'll get their candy, and we'll celebrate the sacrifice that Christ made on the Cross for mankind. :)

We'll also be giving our oldest her gifts and her birthday cake. Her toilet paper birthday cake. We've never done this before, but I'd seen it on Cake Wrecks the other day and realized I just had to do it. And while mine doesn't look as fancy as the one on CW, it at least does look like a mom-made German Chocolate Cake. She'll still get a GCC, but it will stay in the pan, frosted in the oven until she discovers her toilet paper cake is actually toilet paper. And I'll try to post pictures in the next few days.

We are really looking forward to spending the day together tomorrow as a family.

I hope each of you is able to be with your loved ones tomorrow as well.

Wishing a very Blessed Easter to each and every one of you!