Easter

I am so tardy writing this post.  It seems like Easter was just last week, but I am well aware that it was almost a full two months ago.  *Sigh*. 

We dyed Easter eggs like every year in preparation for our egg hunt in the lawn, but this year we got to dye them with the Stoten kids, which made it even more fun.  My kids only hunt for the hardboiled dyed eggs.  The plastic ones are already in their baskets when they come downstairs in the morning.  We don’t make a big deal out of the Easter bunny, but I don’t take all the credit either.  It’s just kind of unspoken how those buckets baskets get filled with such an assortment of wonderful treats. 

I made these cupcakes that were supposed to look like eggs nestled in grass and chocolate covered strawberries that were supposed to look like carrots.  Some, but not all, of my ideas were gleaned from Pinterest.  Feel free to reuse them!

Their baskets do contain some candy, I’ll admit, but I try to be a little creative and throw in a variety of good things they don’t get everyday.  They got peeps and bunny tails (cotton candy) on a stick, fruit snacks, and bags of Cheetos that looked like a carrot.  Cheetos are the favorite forbidden snack in our home, so I had to give in for Easter.

Liam just got Puffs in his eggs, but he was just as excited as the older three!

The egg hunt is a huge competition for who can wrangle the most hard boiled eggs from the lawn.  Ari gets a head start, but other than that, all is fair in love and egg collecting.  My littles are so intense about it, you would think that those colored shells contained more than just overcooked eggs.  This is the third year in a row that we have done it this way, and each year they get more serious about the hunt.  After it’s all said and done, they actually eat every last egg.  I’m not exaggerating when I say that they eat at least four hard boiled eggs each, and for Gabe, the consumed count might exceed a half dozen. 

We usually save the spiritual and portion of the day for after the egg hunt (during and after church), but this year, it was Gabe’s idea to “act out” the story of Jesus’s death and resurrection before we could be allowed to enjoy any pagan rituals.  Gabe is and has always been my most religious child.  He reads bible stories for fun in his free time and he is the kind of kid who, when I’m trying to teach him a lesson, will relate the event at hand to a parable or a bible story.  He knows nearly every character in the Bible and the Book of Mormon (thanks to the books Grammy gave him :)) the way I used to know every kind of dinosaur.  And that’s saying a lot.  Of course my childhood dinosaur obsession never gained me any favor with the Lord.  He truly has a gift.

That said, under Gabe’s direction, I played the part of Mary Magdalene.  Jake was Jesus.  Ari and Bella were the two angels in Jesus’s tomb.  Marci and Leah were Jesus’s disciples (I’ll have to check with Gabe what the names were), and Gabe and Brian played Roman soldiers.  I messed up my part a little, but Gabe was really nice about it and gently informed me of what my correct lines were.  I’m making fun a little, but I was sincerely impressed.  I had no idea that he would initiate this, and I do think it really brought meaning to the morning.

Thank you to my sister, Marci, for being my back-up photographer and helping me document the holiday (I did not forget to plug you!).  No, seriously, I would never be in a photo ever if it wasn’t for you.

After we cleaned up, we went to all three hours of church – yay us!  And it was really good!  We then came home and had Easter dinner with just our little family of six ;).  They told me they wish it could be Easter every day.  So, I guess that means it was a great day :).