life is beautiful.

Joy is what happens to us 

when we allow ourselves to recognize 

how good things really are. 

~Marianne Williamson 

Yay for happy weekends! They typically consist of food, family, sunshine, and babies. :) Yesterday, my cousin Jann's beautiful baby Eva was blessed. She is an adorable, happy baby with a tight grip. ;) She didn't make a peep when I held her, so that's a good sign. Seriously, though, babies are the best. I think it would do everyone in the world some good to hold a baby for twenty minutes a day. After the blessing, I got to see my cousins who came all the way from California. It was great to catch up with them.

Temple Square was beautiful on Saturday. The tulips were blooming and the grass is now officially green. I wanted to run around barefoot, but I restrained myself.

Easter arrived with a beautiful church service and then a scrumptious ham dinner. I thought a lot about Jerusalem. Oh, and there was plenty of Easter candy--chocolate bunnies, French and Belgium chocolates, tangerine jelly beans, dark chocolate eggs, cadbury eggs, and peeps.

P.S. peeps, in my personal opinion, are nasty. But my brother loves them, so what can we do? :) The way I see it is, it's all sugar, but if you're going to get fat eating it, the stuff better taste pretty darn good. And peeps are just like eating straight-up sugar with no flavoring. So I'll stick with my European chocolate thank you very much.

P.S.S. When we were little, my mom hid Easter baskets around the house for us to find in the morning. And we always had a huge Easter egg hunt in the afternoon. I loved racing around my grandparents house in St. George looking for the eggs. I always got less than my brothers, though. They are legit Easter egg finders.
My mom didn't like the Easter Bunny idea when we were little, so we always knew the Easter Bunny didn't exist. Which is funny because we still believed in Santa and fairies. Go figure. Anyway. The Easter Bunny still kind of creeps me out. And I think I have some solid reasons to back up this fear.

Exhibit A:

Seriously? That is the creepiest bunny suit
I have ever seen. It's like the killer bunny
from Mounty Python. (source.)

Exhibit B:

Yeah, kid. I would be trying to get away
too. I'm so glad my mom didn't make
me go through that. (source.)

Exhibit C:

And finally, the Easter Bunny at the White House. Don't be fooled by their
smiles. Look closely at Natasha--she's giving the bunny a worried look.
And Malia looks a little scared too. Plus, notice the wide gap between
the family and the Easter Bunny. Need I say more? (source.)

Happy Monday!