Easter 2010

We are so grateful to celebrate Easter and it is a meaningful and fun tradition in our family. We do the fun stuff on Saturday and the more spiritual stuff together on Sunday. For our spiritual aspect we often read or talk about Christ's resurrection and the significance of this in our lives and in the gospel plan. The kids always have so many specific questions and it is fun to talk about these things.

Below are pictures and brief explanations of some of our Easter traditions.



One of our Easter traditions is to color eggs. The kids seem to enjoy doing it even if the colors don't turn out exactly the way that they were hoping. However, the kids, especially Sarah, are distraught when we start wanting to eat them. They don't like to see their eggs eaten and they don't like the hard-boiled yolks. They get over it.





Easter Egg Hunt! We do the egg hunt (with plastic eggs containing candy) at least as a family and that's what we did this year. The kids enjoy finding the eggs and we enjoy hiding them. Sarah (and Nathan to a lesser extent) were good about letting Jane find some too - often with Mom or Dad's help. The kids very much enjoy the contents of the Easter eggs as well!



For Easter the kids get a basket that they have to find hidden in the house somewhere. They get some kind of a spiritual gift and then some candy and a simple fun gift (like a coloring book or stuffed animal). This year, all of the kids got frogs as they were given to us from a lady in the ward. Nathan particularly enjoyed his and named him Poxy. Sarah and Jane's have kind of been lost in the shuffle (or for good?) of some of their other stuffed animals.

Easter '09

For Easter we did our traditional stuff. On Saturday we dyed eggs and had an Easter egg hunt in the backyard for plastic eggs with candy in them. The kids really enjoyed both of these activities and Nathan held his own this year in the egg hunt and just needed a little help.




Nathan and Sarah wanted pictures with two of the eggs that they dyed. They were really sad when we ate them for lunch on Sunday.

They enjoyed helping each other on the egg hunt and it was sweet to see how excited they both were for each other's finds.

Sunday morning we went to church and enjoyed a great service. I spoke for a little bit as I was released from my calling in the Bishopric (I'm now serving in the Young Men's organization... for the first time! Fun!) After church we delivered some goodies to some friends down the street and then when we were walking back home there was a lady walking her ponies down the street of our neighborhood (yes, I'm in Idaho). The kids enjoyed seeing them but didn't feel like getting too close.

The kids always get a basket with candy, a chocolate easter bunny, something fun and something spiritual. They enjoyed their treats for a number of days and enjoy their spiritual things at church on Sunday during Sacrament meeting each week. After the baskets, we had a special family testimony meetings where we each shared our testimonies about the Gospel and the impact of Christ and His teachings on us. It's a nice tradition and the kids (mostly Sarah) seem to enjoy it.

I usually get up early on Sunday mornings for meetings but since it was Easter and I was getting released we just had one meeting briefly before sacrament meeting. I woke up extra early (because my back hurt and sleeping was futile) and read the portion of Christ's resurrection from each of the four Gospel's and then read Elder Bruce R. McConkie's concluding talk in General Conference titled "The Purifying Power of Gethsemane" from 1985, which is an amazing talk. Anyway, it was a great morning and I am so thankful for the Resurrection of my Lord and Savior and for the living effects of the Atonement that He wrought for everyone.

Easter Fun

Most other bloggers are able to get their posts up more quickly then I am... for me Sundays are the best times to get these posts on here, so my Easter post is a week later. Here you go:
We have church from 9 AM 'til noon so we did Easter baskets after church. The kids were plenty excited about finding them and then getting into the candy. We included a gift that they received in the mail from their great-Grandma (Mary's grandmother) in their baskets, they received a small bunny. They also got some candy, a new pair of jammies, and a small packet of pictures of temples for them to look at during church.
One of our Easter traditions is to have a little family meeting where we have a little "testimony meeting" wherein we talk to each other about what feel about Jesus Christ and his gospel. This was very enjoyable and Sarah was very proud of herself as she talked to us about how she knew that Jesus died for us and that he was resurrected. It was also nice to have a set apart family time where Mary and I could share with each other and with our kids (Nathan was in and out of the room) how we feel about Christ and his gospel.
We spent the rest of Sunday afternoon and early evening at a friends house having a nice Easter dinner with Turkey and all the other fixings. It was some good stuff and we enjoyed our time over there.

Here is Sarah after she found her Easter basket... she's pretty excited about it!
Here's Nathan and Sarah in their new jammies with their respective bunnies from their great-Grandmother. This is also a sneak peak at the new-improved Sarah and Jane room that Mary has been working on, which I will post about when she's finished.

We did Easter eggs on Saturday and Sarah enjoyed doing this. We did it while Nathan was napping.
Here is Nathan climbing up on his bed and discovering what this basket is doing and why everyone else is so excited.
He soon discovered what the excitement was about and dove right in!
Here is Sarah again, showing off her Easter basket!
Nathan is still digging in and really enjoying this situation.