Easter Fun 2011

So, I thought I had planned everything perfect for Easter: Mike had got the morning off of work on Saturday, so we could do our "Secular Saturday" celebrating then with the Easter baskets and egg hunt, and focus on the Savior on "Spiritual Sunday", with special food, activities, and music.

Being at the ER until 3:30 in the morning, kinda killed those plans.

Next year it WILL happen.

We did our best to combine having fun and keeping it spiritual; I think we did a pretty good job.

All this past week, we've talked about the Savior's last week of life, using the Gospel Art Kit pictures and this from The Friend. It really helped us focus all week, and I'm excited to make it a new tradition.

We all met in the kids' room this morning and talked about the last day, when He was resurrected, and shared our testimonies that He lives. We had family prayer, and then we let them run off to the living room.



They went to their Easter baskets first. They each got bubbles, a bunny (chocolate for Adam and Grace and a stuffed bunny for Josh), a squirt gun, and their swimsuit/swim trunks for this summer.


We then let them go on their egg hunt. Each of them has an assigned color of egg to find, and they find 12 eggs each. Adam's are really crazy-hidden, Josh's were laying out in plain site, and Grace's were somewhere in the middle.

It works.

They had SO much fun! They LOVE playing "hide the object" with each other, and getting to find 12 things each was too much fun!


After they found all of their eggs, we made resurrection rolls for breakfast, and talked about how they are empty to represent the empty tomb, because Jesus was resurrected.


After getting cleaned up, I got the kids' all ready to go in their new-to-us Easter clothes. A few months ago, I was all set to make Grace's dress, when I found a seriously darling dress at D.I. for $4, so I decided to try and match the boys to her dress. I found some remnant material at Joann's that matched the flowers on Grace's dress, and made the boys' ties using this tutorial, and Grace's hairclip using this tutorial for yo-yo flowers. I think that they turned out pretty cute! I think I'm going to try my hand at some more ties this week.

Ignore her wonky-looking hair here

We headed out for church, and had such a wonderful meeting! For sharing time, I had a sister in our ward come in and help me, and she completely went the extra-mile. She acted like Mary Magdalene, and talked about the Savior's life from her perspective as His friend. She made picture rings for each of the kids, using pictures from the last week of His life and resurrection, and brought in linen for them to feel and myrrh for them to smell. It was so amazing! The kids' were all dead-silent during her lesson; she is so talented, and made it perfect!

Afterward we came home and had a ham dinner (using this recipe... seriously the best ham I've ever had), cheesy potatoes, grapes, and bunny rolls. Just use your imagination on the rolls!

These darling napkins deserve their own post. My grandma, Nano, made me a set of holiday napkins for Christmas. Love. Them.

When dinner was over, we read a new book and started a new tradition: an Easter walk. I think I'll make that it's own post. ;)

We had such a wonderful Easter Sunday! It didn't turn out completely as I planned, but I think that it turned out just right!