Happy Easter!

Wow...in some ways it doesn't even feel like Easter. Even though I don't think Ted and I have ever attended a sunrise service together, for some reason I still associate sunrise services with Easter Sunday. (Mom and Dad, I'll never forget those years that we drove to Flagpole Hill for the early morning services!) And since the church we are currently attending is geared primarily for outreach to the unique Las Vegas community, the songs we sang this morning did not include "Up From the Grave He Arose" and "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today," my favorite Easter hymns. Still, it has been a very good time of celebration!

We began early last week with our Bible story time. I flipped through our Bible story book to see how close we were to the Easter story sequence and was delighted to find that if we read 2 stories each morning instead of our usual one, we would reach the Resurrection story on Sunday! So all week we were discussing the stories of Palm Sunday, the Last Supper, Jesus praying in the garden, etc.

Then last night we did our annual tradition of making Easter Story Cookies. We've made these the past 3 years now, and the kids absolutely love making them. This year Charis and Tobin really understood what was going on, and I think they "got" much more of the symbolism, which was exciting to see. This year also the part about Jesus drinking vinegar really hit home, since both Charis and Tobin (but especially Tobin!) have been exposed to "whining medicine" in the past!

While I was beating the egg whites and sugar, a process that takes 12-15 minutes, Ted hid the Resurrection Eggs for the kids. He read the stories of 6 of the 12 eggs' contents, and we'll finish the other 6 stories tonight before bedtime.

We did do Easter baskets for the kids. They had actually gotten the baskets a few weeks ago--we did an egg hunt with the moms from my MOPS table this past Monday at a park, so I had gotten them when I was out shopping with the kids earlier in order to save a trip to the store. I got metal buckets for Charis and Tobin so that they can use them year-round and a basket with sports balls on it for Arden, so that he can use it to store his ball collection. I picked up some little treats from the party store a few days ago: paint-with-water books, coloring books for the boys and a "princess school set" for Charis (including zipper pencil bag, eraser, sharpener, and ruler), egg-shaped sidewalk chalk, a water gun, and of course a chocolate Easter bunny. That was it! A grand total of maybe $5 per kid! We aren't ones to spend big money on our kids on occasions like this. I guess that's because we see other parents knocking themselves out on birthdays or whatever, when their kids are 1, 2, or 3 years old, and we think...how can they top that?! We're all about the home parties and keeping things simple yet special! The kids got enough candy at the egg hunt on Monday, and I didn't feel obligated to get more! But I figured a little chocolate bunny would be appropriate. :-)


We read the story of Jesus' resurrection during breakfast as we munched our traditional Sunday-morning whole-wheat pancakes with strawberries. (Ted is a WONDERFUL breakfast cook!!!) Then it was off to church in our Easter outfits!


And just as a side note...you'll probably notice that Tobin's expressions are a bit silly in these pictures! We discovered that ALL of the shots we took included a slightly different yet consistently silly grin on his face, thereby assuring us that yes, he is indeed Ted's son and is therefore prone to helping create "geek pictures!" ;-)