Easter

Our annual Easter/rocking chair family picture

Giving the grass a "haircut"

Friday: Jesus is buried

Sunday: He is alive!

Easter was a joy this year. The kids are finally getting old enough to where they really understand what Easter is all about. Even though we do have fun with the idea of "Santa Claus" at Christmas, and we may or may not go with the notion of a Tooth Fairy, we've never introduced them to the "Easter Bunny". I suppose this is partly because my parents didn't do it with me/my siblings when we were kids, and I always thought it was strange that other kids would get Easter baskets filled with treasures every year. But really, we just want the focus of Easter to be completely on celebrating Christ's resurrection - the center of our faith and reason for our salvation. They still get their fair share of candy from Easter egg hunts, but hopefully that will just be one thing about Easter that they love.

Anyway, not doing Easter baskets doesn't mean we don't have fun! This year, I found a project on Pinterest that I just loved and wanted to with the kids (despite several "pins", this is the only project I've done thus far and probably the only one I'll do for awhile:). A week or so before Easter, we collected rocks, dirt, a small flower pot, sticks for the crosses and some grass seed and created a crucifixion scene. The grass grew more quickly than I had thought it would, and we had to give it a couple of haircuts in order to see the crosses - the kids loved that part. On Friday, we covered up the tomb, and on Sunday, we got to take the stone away and see the empty tomb! I think it is hard - even for adults - to really comprehend the details and intensity and importance of this crucial event, but hopefully this visual gave the kids a little bit of a greater understanding of it all.

After a great morning at church, we had a small Easter egg hunt at home....Travis decided he wanted to help Steve hide the eggs, leaving Evan and Jayna to find them. After naps/rest time, we went over to our friends' house for a fabulous dinner, fellowship, and another Easter egg hunt with TONS of eggs. The weather was gorgeous, adding to our truly great afternoon and evening (especially since it is pretty much ALWAYS raining on Easter around here). Oh, and Steve, who had thought he was going to be working all afternoon at Best Buy doing some overtime work, ended up going there only to find out that BB closed for Easter Sunday! Not many stores do that anymore. So Steve got to join us at our friends' house - an unexpected but very welcome surprise :)

Still thankful for such a great day!