Easter Week 2017

Easter week is quickly becoming one of my favorite holidays.  This year we kept things simple but also took time each day to remember the last week of Christ’s life.  Emily kept reminding us that Easter was on Sunday and was sooooo excited.  When Sunday finally arrived she ran down the stairs and said, “It’s Easter! Jesus is alive again!”

We started with a Palm Sunday walk with friends on Sunday.  We made palm leaves out of green hands and cardboard.  Before we let the kids run wild we sang “Hosanna” and talked about Christ’s entry into Jerusalem.  Everyone ran and played along the path for about 30-40 minutes and then we turned around and enjoyed treats by our cars.  It was a a fun night and the kids had so much fun being outside together.  This is something that is slowing growing bigger each year, which I love thanks to the first Palm Sunday walk I did in Jerusalem back in 2011.

On Monday we talked about Jesus cleansing the temple and used that to encourage our Monday cleaning routine.  We spent the morning trying to make headway downstairs and it was way more fun done in celebration.

Tuesday we talked about Jesus’ parables and sermons, following the guide that the Small Seed put together this year and Wednesday we told stories about Jesus.

Thursday we watched the bible video of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Friday we watched the bible videos about Jesus being tried, scourged, and crucified.  I didn’t preview it ahead of time and Emily was a little shocked with the whole thing.  We talked through it though and had a good discussion, and I think the joy of the resurrection was made a little more clear contrasting his death.

Saturday was our day to do traditional easter activities.  We had a church Easter Egg hunt and brunch at a park.  Emily was equally excited for the Easter Egg hunt. She helped me fill our dozen eggs with candy to take to the event and found an old baby wipes container to collect the eggs we found in. When the easter egg hunt started she hung back with the crowd but quickly warmed up to finding eggs.  She stayed diligent and even when all the other kids had cleared off having found their portion, she stayed and found quite a few remaining eggs.  Andrew and Nathan hunted eggs together.  Nathan was oblvious to the purpose of walking around in the grass. Andrew pointed out an egg to him and he was like, “Well what do you know, how cool” and picked it up and started shaking it.  After Andrew pointed out a second one he realized that finding eggs was actually a thing and he got into it.  It was really fun.

Sunday we watched the bible videos of Jesus’s resurrection and then sang the easter hymns and the easter songs from the primary children’s song book.  It was fun to teach Emily some of the words to the hymns because during church on Sunday she was able to sing with us, which she loved.  I played in a quartet at church, Mozart’s Jesus, Savior.

After church we had a traditional Easter dinner with our neighbors.  We split the dishes so we provided salad, mashed potatoes, and dessert, and they did ham, challah bread, and fruit.  It worked out perfectly and we had a wonderful feast.  The kids had fun sitting and talking during the meal and after went outside to play in the little backyard.  We pulled out ice cream cones for dessert and they were all thrilled at the treat.  Nathan walked around eating his for almost 20 minutes and it was fun to see him jump into the realm of the big kids.