Easter Sunday 2010

I am sure that blogs every where today will be posting about fun Easter outings, egg hunts, time with family, and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I am pleased with how our Easter turned out. We began with church. I always want to get the kids something in the traditional candy/Easter bunny tradition, but first and foremost, I desire for my children to know WHY we really celebrate Easter. Katherine needed no help in this. At school, they did these Easter eggs that had small items in them, each with a different purpose, to represent the different reasons we celebrate, or the things that Christ endured on the Cross. There was a coin, which I think was to represent the price Judas accepted to betray Christ. There was a sponge, to illustrate when Jesus asked for a drink and they gave put a sponge with vinegar to his lips. There was a croûton, and probably because it creeped me out that Kat had a really old croûton just lying around, I missed its meaning. I believe there were a total of 12 items. Katherine really wanted to put them in eggs and hide them around the house, so the others could find them and we could talk about the REAL reason for Easter. It's not about the bunny. Name that tune: "The bunny, the bunny, ooh I love the bunny. I don't love my mom or my dad just the bunny."

So Katherine hid her eggs throughout the house yesterday and today she conducted her own little egg hunt. In each of her siblings' rooms she hid a few eggs that had candy in them. Then throughout the house, she hid 12 more eggs, her "Jesus" eggs. Once everyone found all of their eggs, she sat the kids down in the living room and told us what each one represented. It was so cool to watch her do this. She has a lot of initiative and she really beleives deep down in her heart that Jesus is real, that he died for her sins, that he rose again, and that she has a place with him in Paradise! Childlike faith is a true blessing to witness.

I was on Facebook last night when I stumbled upon a friend asking for suggestions on what to put in Easter eggs that didn't include high fat, high sugar candy. Someone on her friends' list suggested buying a puzzle and putting the pieces in the plastic eggs. Once all of the eggs were found, the goal was to work the puzzle together as a family. I thought this was one of the greatest ideas I've ever heard! And fortunately, my mom had given me a box full of puzzles I had and loved when I was a kid. So I found a Charlie Brown puzzle and promptly divided all 249 pieces between 42 eggs. We gave the kids specific instruction on gently putting the eggs in their baskets, as I didn't want them splitting open and the kids finding out about the puzzle too early. So they did as they were told, for once! They gathered all of the eggs and then we allowed them to dump the contents of their eggs onto the table. At first they were like "Puzzle pieces?" Then I told them that we would work together to make the puzzle. We didn't let them see the box so that they wouldn't know ahead of time what the puzzle was of. We thought this would be a little more challenging for them and add a little more fun. It was great to hear them reasoning things out and one of them discovred early on that there was at least 1 balloon in the puzzle, though I couldn't figure out how they knew that. They're just really smart I suppose!

So we worked the puzzle to near completion. It was then that we realized we were missing one piece. Grr! That's what I get for #1. Not counting them beforehand and #2. believing that somehow a puzzle that was well over 20 years old would actually still have all of its pieces! I think everyone had a good time and we agreed that this should be a new yearly tradition. So, every Easter, we will have a puzzle egg hunt and then spend time as a family putting together the puzzle! I'm looking forward to Easter next year!

Here are just a few pictures of our fun. As you will see at the end, there was indeed one piece missing. But it still looked good and was just a really enjoyable time with the family.