"In Your Easter Bonnet"

"With all the frills upon it, you'll be the grandest lady in the easter parade"... An Irving Berlin song made famous for the 1948 movie titled Easter Parade starring Judy Garland and Fred Astaire. I love this song and the movie and of course I always think of at this time of year, Easter (duh, like I would be thinking of this movie at Christmas??)... My mom is here and we are having a wonderful visit. We are going shopping for my easter bonnet today, momma doesn't wear hats, they just don't look good on her (her words not mine, but it is true). I am so excited. A new hat, a new dress, new shoes... All of these things for Easter, things that symbolize new life. I don't know what the weather looks like where you are, but it is BEAUTIFUL day here and the weekend is supposed to be even better!!

Easter means so much to me, it signifies new life (as I said above), the flowers are blooming, it's warmer (thank heavens) and of course it means so much to my faith. I won't bore you with all of the details, but this Easter is a testament to the growth in faith I have experienced over the last year. I am more filled with peace than ever before and God's blessings are abundant in my life.

One of the best traditions of Easter whether you are religious or not is the hiding of easter eggs... I used to love dying the eggs and decorating them.. My mom would hide them for me, my cousins and my friends.. Especially with my family it was like war trying to find the most easter eggs.. Especially with my cousin CF, he's 5 years older than me and he was more like a big brother to me rather than just a cousin.. Seriously, it was so funny, we would like fight over eggs!! Picking on each other is an art form in my family.. Something the younger generation just doesn't get. CF's sister TE, is a person I mention fequently in my writings. She is my cousin (obviously) but she more like my sister. In fact we call each other sisters b/c in our hearts, that's exactly what we are (ahhhh, I know, it makes you want to barf!).. So as we have gotten older and TE's girls have gotten older (with the exception of little man H, he's 2) my mom has started a new tradition. An easter egg hunt with plastic eggs filled with money!! It's genius! Pure genius I tell you! She will fill eggs with quarters, one dollar bills, five dollar bills and one twenty dollar prize egg!! So as I have said before, the younger generation is not used to our competitive and often times down right mean way of easter egg hunting... Last year, when TE, her two teenage girls and I were given our baskets and momma said go, I think I knocked down one of the girls to get out of the house and into the yard. Little man H who was one at the time, had no idea what was going on, but he was giggling and chasing after his mother (who by the way used to run track and is still pretty quick in her old age)... I think at one point she was like, "NOT NOW LITTLE MAN, MOMMY'S BUSY" she kind of yelled and he shrank back.. I know she felt a little bad afterwards but hey we were in the middle of a war, I mean an easter egg hunt...

I of course ended up with the most money!! But I won't be there this year, b/c obviously momma came here for Easter.. So I know she will probably still hide the eggs, maybe this year one of the kids might actualy toughen up and win... but my money is on their mother...

I hope you all have a happy and very blessed easter weekend!!

~Beachgirl