Simply Easter

Well it’s here… Easter. And as always I scrambled at the last minute to try and make it meaningful. Whether I am a success or not will depend on what my children remember 10 or 20 years down the road. This year wasn’t one of my better ones.

I love Easter, but have the hardest time finding anything in the stores that I can give to my kids that really help them understand what Easter is really about. We don’t have the Easter Bunny come – The Leprechauns take care of that fantasy realm giver. But if you do have the tradition of giving Easter Baskets then here are some great ideas for next year if you want to avoid the sugar/sick high your kids experienced this year. My kids didn’t get the sugar but I was very aware of all the kids at church that did.

http://kidsproducts.suite101.com/article.cfm/easter_basket_ideas_for_children

In the past we have had a family Easter week that includes a Passover meal, Scripture Stories of Jesus each day of the week, Easter cookies, a family Easter egg hunt as well as Easter Dinner. But with two family birthdays and St. Patrick’s Day this year our Christ-centered Easter wasn’t up to my usual brilliant standards.

Yesterday I went last-minute shopping for possible Easter egg hunt goodies that didn’t include sugar. Let me tell you – my creative juices were stymied and I ended up wanting to give up on the whole egg hunt idea. But I didn’t, it just was a lot smaller without the candy.

After church, we had Lea hide between 4 & 6 eggs per child. Each egg was marked with their names except for one each that was blank. The blank eggs contained different amounts of $. I know those are always my favorite. Those blank ones were up for grabs – but only one each. The other eggs contained scriptures to look up and as soon as they looked up the scriptures and we discussed it then we gave them the corresponding gift.

Boys:

Ephesians 6:11 = Little Knight Figures

(you know the whole armor of God kind of stuff.)

James 4:8 = Big Clattering magnets.

The kind that when you toss them they keep bouncing together. And they are big so they aren’t a temptation for Hope to put in her mouth.

Girls:

Deut. 14:1 = Little Princess’s Figures

(Because they are the children of a king)

· A personalized charm bracelet with some of the symbols of Easter on it.

Both:

· Moroni 10:3 = Scripture marking pencils

· Matthew 7:25 / Helaman 5:12 = Pop Rocks –

Comparing the tingling of the pop rocks to their testimony. That and I can never find Pop Rocks so when I do I get them for my kids.

Hope can't get enough of them and is trying to eat them by the handful.

I know it’s not much, but there are a few other things we did too. The boys each got a new white shirt, the girls did not however get new Easter dresses. I gave up after visiting no less than 5 stores and not being able to find anything cute enough that wasn’t sleeveless. Who are they kidding? It’s still freezing outside and all the Easter dresses have no sleeves. Last year I bought 4 dresses and had a friend take the extra material from the fourth dress and make sleeves to set in the other three. But when all was said and done it probably cost me the same as buying 6 complete dresses. They were adorable, but after a couple of wearings the material around the sleeves started to fray. This year they had to deal with the matching Target dresses I got last month.

Favorite Passover Movies: Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments
Veggie Tales ‘Moe and the Big Exit’

Favorite Easter Movies: Ben Hur (Maybe I just have a fascination with the young Charlton Heston). Note: We don’t watch both the Ten Commandments and Ben Hur in the same year. Every other year. Otherwise I might get mixed up and think Moses was in a Chariot race of something.
Veggie Tales ‘An Easter Carol’

This year was our year to enjoy Ben Hur.

So all in all it was a very simple Easter this year. I myself probably didn’t get what I should have out of it. But only because I was wallowing in the fact that I didn’t live up to my usual standard. But I think the kids still had fun. Can’t wait for some sleep myself. Whew, I have two whole weeks to plan for the next family birthday. I guess it serves me right for having so many kids –

No sleep and lots of reasons to Party!

Happy Easter!!!