Thank you for the cross
We used our wedding china and stemware! I loved that, too! Here's a picture of the table before it had all the food on it. I should have gotten an "after" shot, too. But I'm too picky about cleaning and I just can't handle all of you seeing a messy kitchen. I should have gotten a closer picture of the china -- the detail is so pretty. It's Opal Innocence by Lenox.
Tulips are my favorite spring flower. I would love to have a weekly delivery of fresh tulips to my house.
My first sip of wine since mid-December 2006. It was a 2005 Columbia Valley Syrah.It tasted so good. I've never been a big drinker but I was surprised at how much I missed having a glass of wine with dinner. To anyone who is thinking, "But isn't she nursing Emma? How can she drink alcohol?" I didn't even drink that whole amount in my glass there. Just a few sips. All of my baby books say one full glass of wine with a meal every now and then is no harm at all to mom's milk or to baby who drinks it (the milk, not the wine). 
The hubby slicing the ham right before dinner. We made a tangerine glaze for the ham, a recipe I got off of the Food Network website. Actually, all of our recipes for this year were off of the Food Network.
Daddy and Mommy McMahan. :) And the Easter ham.
So, food pictures always look nasty to me, and yet I post a picture of my plate anyway. It was all delicious, even though it looks slimy and not that appealing in this picture. I'm not a food photographer. :) We had the ham with the tangerine glaze, garlic roasted asparagus, homemade scalloped potatoes and a strawberry/spinach salad. And dinner rolls. My mom made strawberry shortcake for dessert using the Puyallup Fair scone recipe for the shortcake part. MY FAVORITE. Since my first birthday, strawberry shortcake (or, "court-cake" as my parents say I used to call it) has been my favorite dessert.
Right before we sat down to dinner. My husband was so cute in the kitchen. He was a big help. Never could have done it all on time without his assistance. Especially helping me figure out how to cook three dishes (with all different temperatures and cook times) in one oven so that they all got done around the same time and weren't cold when we set them on the table.
All in all, Easter was awesome. The day started out with super cute pictures of our baby daughter in her Easter outfit (next year be on the look-out for adorable baby in Easter DRESS) and church (which was JAM-PACKED and took us nearly 30 minutes to get out of the parking lot). We are so thankful for the cross and for all Jesus did for us. Truly...there is nothing more humbling than thinking about what He did to save all of us. When I think of the challenges I have in my life and feel frustrated ... and then think of what His duties were and how He handled them, I am humbled beyond normal humility.
Some people shy away from thinking about what He went through. I understand that; it's painful, it's dirty, it's bloody. I remember the majority of my life, I just thought about the cross from a faraway standpoint, just knowing the facts and not really looking at details. It's too gruesome for us to really know how terrible it must have been. Have you seen The Passion of the Christ? It's almost unbearable to watch. But in my mind, watching it is nothing compared to living it. If Jesus LIVED it, for me, I should watch it, read about it and REMEMBER this gift. It's kind of like (on a very small, superficial level) watching your mom slave away in the kitchen for a Christmas meal and really looking at the mess the meal prep leaves her ... looking at all the ingredients she had to buy, the dirty dishes in the sink, the trash, the hours passing by on the clock ... it all helps you realize what goes into that beautiful, delicious meal on the dining room table. The gift doesn't just materialize; hard work, planning, sweat, stress, money and love all go into preparing a huge meal like that. It's easy to just sit down, eat, put your napkin back on your plate and say, "Thanks, Mom. It was good!" and be on your way.
I will never know what Christ experienced. As my favorite Christian author/speaker/Bible study leader Beth Moore says, "I have no earthly idea." What it felt like to be beaten, dragged through the city with a heavy cross on his shoulders, tattled on and denied by one of his own disciples, all before dying a painful death hung on a cross before people who ridiculed him. I'll never know that, thankfully. But that was a gift He gave to me. He did it because He loves me. He had to live through a painful, earthly nightmare; the least I can do is watch and try to realize what a sacrifice it truly was. It doesn't do anything to turn my head. I want to see what He gave. It inspires me. Everything He did in His life inspires me.
But Easter is not so much about that as it is about His rising. A glorious celebration. Can you even imagine what they felt when they realized He had risen? Mary Magdalene, His disciples, his own mother ... if they didn't believe it before, they believed it then. They truly saw Jesus as Lord of Lord, King of Kings that day He left the tomb and shrugged off the shroud. Here's the story out of the Gospel of John. I love reading this and picturing how everyone must have felt, what the wind felt like against Mary's face, how the sand felt gritty between the toes, how the tears tasted, the roughness of the rock that was rolled away from the tomb and even what Jesus' voice sounded like when He later said to His disciples, "Peace be with you," or to Thomas, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
Beginning with John 20
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!" So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)
Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?"
"They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
"Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?"
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."
Jesus said to her, "Mary."
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).
Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"
Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her.
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!"
After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you."
And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."
Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!"
But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."
A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."
Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"
Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
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