Easter Weekend

I don't normally blog a lot about Easter - mainly because there is so much to cover with the Easter story, I don't really know where to start. And people are blogging out the wazoo about it, and most of those bloggers are a lot more knowledgeable than I about Easter traditions or history. But what I can do is show you some bits and pieces from our annual Easter drama. These are a few pictures and a couple of short videos from last night. We will be doing it again tonight at 8pm, so if you live in the area, PLEASE come by and see it! Everyone works so hard on this. It was my first year watching it instead of participating and it's absolutely amazing. (Faith Baptist Church, 2180 Carthage Rd in West End. Childcare and refreshments provided for free!)

 Scene: The Last Supper (new this year)

Scene: Jesus praying in the garden

Nothing is quite as chilling as watching Jesus praying in the garden, and seeing the guards coming from about 200 yards away, with flaming torches. (Video is 30 seconds long)

Scene: Jesus is brought before Pilate:

Scene: Jesus being forced to carry his cross which he will be crucified on (Video is about 50 seconds long; song is sung by Stacy at our church. I wish I had gotten to video the entire song.)

Scene: Jesus being nailed to the cross

Scene: Jesus being buried, and three days later rising again (Video is 3 minutes and 15 seconds long. The awesome, awesome part starts at 1:30; the part that makes me cry every time is at 1:55)

Please come see it tonight if you have the opportunity!

Easter Day

Happy Easter! Did you know it is possible to give frugal gifts for holidays? EVEN FOR CHILDREN?? Sometimes I feel like people have forgotten that.

I made our children's Easter baskets weeks ago with just a few items in each one. I knew I made the right decision by downplaying the Easter Bunny when my 2-year old came home from preschool last week. Her grandmother asked her what Easter was about. Her reply? "Eggs!!" Okay, not quite on the mark. We've been talking about the Easter story a bit, but I know they're getting them revved up for the big egg hunt, so that's probably why she has eggs on the brain.

Then this past weekend, she was in nursery while my husband and I did an outdoor Easter drama at church. We got in the car to leave and I talked to her again about Easter being the next day. She repeatedly yelled out things about the Easter Bunny and candy and lots of exclamation points because we had not told her all this stuff was happening!!!

 I don't mind her knowing about egg hunts and the Easter bunny, I'm not saying that at all. I love giving gifts to our children. I love doing egg crafts and candy egg hunts and all that fun stuff. But I don't want her to think that's what Easter is all about.

Today, after church, I asked her again what Easter is about. This time, she said, "Jesus died. And then he lived again!" There we go!!

Now onto my very frugal Easter baskets! Sorry for my soapbox!
 

Brianna's basket (2 years old) contained: a Berenstein Bears book (10 cents from a local thrift store), bath coloring soap (99 cents from my friend who sells Avon), a pair of Princess Tiana socks (50 cents from Target after Christmas), gardening tools (20 cents each from Michaels clearance bin), a ring pop (17 cents from Dollar Tree), and half a bag of jelly beans (50 cents from Dollar Tree). Final total - $2.66!

Hunter's basket (18 months old) contained: a Sandra Boynton book (10 cents from a local thrift store), bath coloring soap (99 cents from my friend who sells Avon), a pair of Toy Story socks (50 cents from Target after Christmas), gardening tools (20 cents each from Michaels clearance bin), and half a bag of jelly beans (50 cents from Dollar Tree). Final total - $2.49!

I don't feel like they missed out on anything by not receiving a lot of goodies. They were happy with what they got and I had fun hunting out good deals throughout the past several months!!

Stephen went to the sunrise service at church this morning, but the kids and I didn't. We just went to regular church at 9:30. After church we had time to find the Easter baskets from the Easter Bunny and play with some of our new stuff. Then we went to lunch at my grandparent's house with my family. The kids had a ball doing egg hunts and playing with their older cousins Emma and Jessie! They got Easter goodies from Granny and Granddaddy like new books, trucks for Hunter, craft things for Brianna, and candy!

Later in the afternoon, Grandpa Steve and Kathy came over and brought the kids more Easter goodies! They got candy of course, and Hunter got his first airplane! Can you believe the kid doesn't have an airplane yet!? But the coolest toy was the Play-Doh Dentist kit that Brianna got! They didn't have toys like this when I was a kid!

You can actually make the teeth from white Play-Doh, brush the teeth (make toothpaste with red Play-Doh), make cavities with silver Play-Doh, and make braces with the silver Play-Doh! You can create a tongue with red Play-Doh and there are other dentist tools included in this kit!

Brianna and Hunter did get really fun Easter stuff from my parents and her family in Georgia too! Lots of crackers, and toys, and M&Ms! These kids didn't know what hit them this Easter.

“For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” Romans 5:10

Dying Eggs

I think we all know what it means when it's the day before Easter... time to dye eggs!!

Last year I dyed eggs with Brianna and we did these super cool tie-dye eggs! They were very easy for her to do at her age then (23 months old) and I loved the way they turned out:

But of course I wanted to try something new this year. Turns out there are only about a million ways you can dye Easter eggs. Finally I decided to go with something simple since I knew she was going to want to "help" a lot more this year. I just did a simple kit that my grandmother gave me a few months ago. We went with the ol' Magic Crayon and Brianna drew on the eggs, then we dyed them and put stickers on them.

 We made an egg for Hunter and one for Brianna!

 We did put glitter on one egg. I only had black glitter so we made a bumblebee egg. Very simple process - put double-sided tape on your egg (you can make it a lot prettier by punching it out into circles, but who has time for that?) and then roll the egg in glitter.

Our final eggs - all stickered up and ready to be made into deviled eggs for Easter lunch tomorrow!!

Show me how you dye your eggs - I'll try something new next year too!

Easter Egg Hunt

This year was Brianna's first Easter egg hunt at school. Fortunately, her Oma was in town from Georgia, so we went with Hunter to help out the teachers and a couple of other moms at school.

Her class was pretty chaotic. Even at just 2 and 3 years old they knew nothing serious was going to happen today, which was the last day of school before Spring Break!!

This is Hunter's favorite part of Bri's classroom. I always have to drag him out of the kitchen. Similar situations happen at home as well...

 Hunter found one egg and promptly threw it away. He spent the rest of the time playing on the playground. None of that sissy egg hunting for him. Of course, had he realized most of them contained candy he probably would have taken it more seriously!

 This is Martha Anne - Bri's BFF from school. She's very good with Hunter because her brother Henry is just a couple of months younger than Hunter!!

Obviously we broke into the eggs as soon as we got into the car! We got tons of Starburst, M&Ms and chocolate!

Instead of regular snack time, they had their Easter party.

Then, after school we had a Sonic mystery shop.

So basically my kids have been junk food junkies all day. Just waiting for the crash!!