Easter 2011: a belated recap

Easter weekend came and went in a flurry.  Tim sang at 4 services at our church over the weekend, so we didn't see much of him, but thankfully the girls and I were able to spend a lot of that time with my parents, and both sets of my grandparents.  (sidenote:  Tim took the girls to see his grandma for the afternoon the weekend before, while I cleaned the house without interruptions, and then his mom was in town all last week, so in a matter of 8 days my kids got to see 5 great-grandparents and 3 grandparents!  Amazing!)

My Grandpa's face in this picture just cracks me up!!

At the last minute (like, Saturday afternoon), I decided to do Easter baskets for the girls.  I've kind of steered away from them because my kids frankly just don't need any more candy, (especially after the VEISHEA parade a few weeks ago!) and I really want to be intentional to try and focus our holidays as much as possible on the true meaning of the season.  But I came across an amazing blog post idea that got me so excited about redeeming the infamous Easter basket!

So on Saturday night the girls each put some rocks in their baskets.  Then at bedtime we talked about some of the ways that we sin, and wrote them on the rocks.  We then covered the baskets with a red cloth, to represent Jesus' blood, and put the girls to bed.  Audrey was SO curious about what was going to happen!

The next morning they woke up and uncovered the baskets, and found an extra basket with Jesus' name on it, in between their baskets, holding all of their rocks.  (And our last Resurrection Egg to open.)

Their baskets had a few spring treats in them...a butterfly net and garden shovel.  I wanted to find them each a Christ-based children's book or something about Easter too, but like I said, this happened way last minute.  Next year I'm hoping to put Benjamin's Box in one of their baskets.  Audrey understood the lesson...that Jesus' blood covered her sins and took them away.  Norah just wanted to put all her rocks back in her basket.  :)  All in all, I still love this idea, and we'll be doing it again!

The butterfly nets were a huge hit as well!

We were planning on going to my parents' church's sunrise service at the park on Easter morning, at 6:30 a.m., but Audrey woke up crying 3 times the night before and when my alarm went off at 6 it was 32 degrees outside.  So I decided to let the girls sleep and we went to my parents house for breakfast at a more reasonable hour.  I had gone to the Good Friday service at our church already, but I took the girls back on Sunday morning so they could listen to Tim's special music...and they LOVED it!

These ham-ball faces crack me up.  They were totally done with pictures at this point.

Eeek!  Unintentional belly shot.  Next time remind me to suck it in a bit for the camera.

The girls with my Dad, aka "Papa."  (He's the one who Audrey wanted me to mail my ponytail to.) :)

After we got back from church, my mom let the girls "hunt" for jelly beans, spread all over her house.  They were enthralled.

"May I eat it, peeze, Mommy?"

I just can't say 'no' to those manners!

The afternoon concluded with my mom's crazy fun new tradition, the "egg roll."  This was our second annual egg roll as a family, and Audrey really got into it this year.  Norah didn't want anyone to smash her egg, so she held onto it tight, and refused to participate!  The rules:  Hard boil eggs, dye them each a different color, give one to each family member and create a bracket...pair off and ROLL!  The first egg to lose a piece of shell is out of the game.  The last egg intact is the winner...and then gets smashed on the driveway by all the other eggs.  Great fun for little (and big!) kids alike. : )

(Stick your tongue out and CONCENTRATE!)

Holler and cheer when your egg does well!

Giggle like crazy because it's actually okay to play with your food!

"No fanks, egg roll!  Norah's egg!  No smash it!"

Friday Quick 5

1.  Sitting here listening to my sweet girls sing along with Steve Green, "A joyful heart is good medicine."  Loving it while it lasts.

2.  We have one kid sick, and I'm waiting for the other one to follow suit.  It's pretty much inevitable, considering one of their new favorite things to do together is hold hands.  They've taken to wearing plastic buckets (like sand pails for the beach) on their heads, holding hands, and running around and around the circle in our house, yelling "I'm a farmer, I'm a farmer," while laughing and giggling together.  It's quite hilarious.  And I love how much they are learning to enjoy one another (some of) these days.  

3.  We braved the cold last weekend and ventured out to the VEISHEA parade.  A good time (and a LOT of candy) was had by all.

4.  My favorite quote from Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts this week:  "The parent must always self-parent first, self-preach before child-teach, because who can bring peace unless they've held their own peace?"

5.  Resurrection Eggs are in full force around here.  At least 3 or 4 times a day the girls ask me if they can open another Easter egg.  They are SO into it this year, and I love it!  Audrey is predicting what will be in each one, and correcting me if I simplify the story too much.  (When we opened one with bread in it, and I was explaining the last supper, I said something like "when you eat this bread, remember that I gave my body for you."  Audrey said "no no no, Mommy, Jesus said 'this is my body, this is my blood, given for you for for....gev....nis of sins.'"  Thanks to this book, apparently she's retaining more than we knew!)   And Norah leaned over to me at the lunch table yesterday with a very intense look on her face and said "coth rapped!"  ???  I repeated what I thought she said, though it still made no sense to me.  "Cloth wrapped?"  "Yesh!" she replied, adamantly.  "What are you talking about Norah?"  N:  "Cloth wrapped, 'round Jesus' body!  Wow!"  The night before we had opened an egg with a white cloth in it, and talked about how they wrapped Jesus' body in the cloth, but the next morning when the women went to the tomb, all they found were the cloths, all folded up, and Jesus' body was gone.  I demonstrated the process with a teddy bear, rolled a big pillow in front of it, and without them knowing removed the bear from the blanket before we rolled the pillow away.  I wish I would have had a camera to capture the dropped jaws and whispered "wows" from two little mouths.  They were absolutely amazed.  Oh, that that amazement might continue and carry over into the understanding of the real gospel truths!  Not all of our conversations have been super-spiritual...they are, after all, just 1 & 3 years old.  :)  Last night Audrey told our friend Nicole, who was babysitting, that "they put salt and pepper and cinnamon" on Him.  Her interpretation of burial spices.  :)  Gotta love it.  

Well, that's 5 my friends.  Praying you and your family experience much joy as you remember and celebrate the fulness of Easter this weekend.  

"God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." 

-1 Corinthians 5:21

He is risen!

Lent

I have to admit, we haven't done much around here in the way of Easter preparation, though it's not because I haven't wanted to.  It seems like the season of Lent just rushed right on in and I haven't stopped to gather my thoughts or figure out what would be appropriate and helpful and on the level of our kids to do together as a family this year.

Last year we looked forward to Easter by opening Resurrection Eggs, and we're for sure going to do that again this year, it was a big hit!  I'm considering adding something else...but not quite sure what that might be.

I just read a post about Lent at Sit a Spell, and she had some great links at the end to a variety of lent and Easter resources for kids.  So if you're looking for ideas, I highly recommend clicking on over to her site.  

Anyway, I'm curious.  What do you and your family do to prepare for this important season?  Please share!

Easter Preparation

I can't believe I haven't posted anything on here in a week.  Sadly it seems that both of my children decided to give up sleep for lent.  Ha.  So I've been too tired to do anything non-essential, such as blog.  But I really wanted to get this idea out there for anyone else who might want to try it this year. 

Growing up my mom had a really neat tradition every Easter season, to help us kids prepare for the holiday.  This year I'm excited to start the tradition with Audrey.  It's really simple and doesn't require a lot of prep...always a bonus when you're dealing with small (unpredictable!) children.  They're called Resurrection Eggs.  (Click on that link for a detailed description of how to make your own set.)  Basically you just need 12 plastic Easter eggs, an egg carton or basket to store them in, a Bible and some small props to put in each egg.  And though my goal initially was to do this for Audrey's benefit, I'm looking forward to the daily reminders myself, to prepare my own heart for the coming celebration.

Audrey helped me take the eggs out of the package I bought them in and fill our basket with grass this morning.  Then we numbered the eggs 1-12 with permanent marker and put them in the basket.

Tonight after she goes to bed, (which hopefully won't take an hour or longer, as it did last night :P) I'll fill each egg with props to go along with snippets of the Easter story that will be read.  Starting tomorrow, we'll open one egg each day until Easter.  For example, she'll find things like a little piece of bread when we read about the Last Supper, 3 dimes for Judas' betrayal of Jesus with 30 silver pieces, (another variation is a Hershey's kiss, to symbolize Judas betraying Jesus in the garden with a kiss,) a feather for the cock crowing after Peter's denial, a stick full of thorns for the crown Jesus wore, etc.  The culmination happens on Easter morning when the egg is opened, and found...EMPTY!  Just like the tomb! :) 

If Audrey is this excited about opening empty Easter eggs, I can't wait to see her reaction when she finds little treasures in them. :)

And, don't flog me for this, but my kids won't be getting Easter baskets from us.  It's just not something we do.  So rather than getting chocolate bunnies and jelly beans, (besides, I'm sure Grandma will have that covered!) I picked out a new book for each girl at our local Christian bookstore a few weeks ago.  Audrey will be getting The Very First Easter board book.  (FYI, I have heard there IS a difference between the board book and the paperback version, so I can only vouch for the content of the board book!)

Of all the children's books about Easter out there, I really liked how this one stuck to the facts but told the story in a way simple enough for a child to understand.  And the illustrations are beautiful and realistic.  We'll probably give it to her tonight or tomorrow so we can read it along with our Resurrection Eggs.  And Norah will be getting The Tale of Three Trees.

Have you read this one before?  If not, I highly recommend it!  It will be a few years before she understands the significance of the story, so for now I'm sure she'll be "sharing" it with Audrey a lot. ;)

How about you?  Does your family have any special Easter traditions?  What do you do to prepare your family, and your own heart, for the Easter season?  I'd love to hear more ideas!