Easter Recap

Easter is always such a fun time for us. It goes beyond the egg hunts and dinners, it is about the day that our Savior conquered death and made eternal life by His side possible. That we cannot capture in pictures. The celebration is what we can capture. And we captured a lot of it.

Here is our Easter...in pictures. Sorry for the overload, we had a lot of fun! Oh, and I have a Bajillion photos of Little Man I am dying to share. He was hammin' it up all day. Torture not to share!

My youngest, my dad and I

Baby's first Easter

They are silly...they get it from me.

The sassiest girl around

A boy on a mission

 How did you spend your Easter?

Coffee Talk: Guilty

 {source}

If we were to sit and chat over coffee today, I would start by telling you how excited we are for this weekend. Easter is such a fun time for us. I'd probably  invite you to join in on the fun at our church. If you have kids, I'd make sure you knew how much I'd love for them to come to our Easter Egg hunt.

Last years hunt

After we chatted about our Easter plans, I would tell you about the classes and training we have had for foster care so far. I might tell you about some of the sad stats and laws we have learned of. We would both be in tears.

If I was to be really honest and real with with you, I would tell you how the more prepared we are and the closer we get, the more guilt I have about my relationship changing with my own kids. How scared I am for how much their world is about to change.

I would tell you how the age difference between Talon and the new baby will be about the same but how the amount of attention a foster baby will require is going to be so much different. So much greater.

This is where I would need your shoulder to cry on. This is where I would likely fall apart. I would tell you how I know this is Gods plan and I know He will work it out but that my heart is still aching for my babies. How all I can think about is the idea of my comforting and loving on a new baby and my poor children wanting their mommy back.

I would probably finish the talk on the topic by laughing at myself and the idea that I think I know what's going to happen when clearly God has this all worked out. How I know He wouldn't have called me to it of He didn't know my kids and I could do it.

Then, I would sit and listen to what's going on with you. So tell me, what's happening on your end?

Resurrection Rolls

It is so easy to get caught up in the fun of special holiday and forget to reflect on the actual meaning behind that special day. Why not take the significant stuff and make it fun for our kids.

This year, in order to keep the focus of Easter on Jesus, we made resurrection rolls. They are a simple and tasty way to walk your little ones through the story of Easter.

So go gather up your ingredients. All you will need is:

Marshmallows (however many rolls you will be making, we did 8)
Crescent Rolls
Butter
Cinnamon Sugar

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. While your oven preheats begin sharing about Jesus' death on the cross.

Line your baking sheet with parchment paper and then place your crescent rolls onto the sheet. You will want them separated based on their pre-cut triangles. As you lay them out, explain that the dough is like the cloth that they wrapped Jesus' body in.

Now for the hands on part, which my kids love. Give them their marshmallow and explain that it represents Jesus. It is white and pure, to show that Jesus was without sin.

Have the kids cover their marshmallows in butter to represent the embalming oils.

Then take their covered marshmallow and roll it around in the cinnamon sugar which symbolizes the spices that were used to prepare his body for burial.

 

Now place your marshmallows in the "cloth". Make sure to close them up securely. Remember that this represents how they wrapped Jesus' body.

Place your rolls in the oven which will represent the tomb. Bake for 12 minutes.

While you wait for your rolls, read John20:1-18.

Remove your rolls from the tomb. Open them up and see that the marshmallow is gone.

Jesus is Risen!

Crafting it Up

With Easter right around the corner, the kids and I have been working hard to cutesy up the house. One of the projects we have done, is a cute Easter egg banner.

She is intense.

 We started up by ripping up lots and lots and lots of colored paper.

Once the paper was all torn up, we pasted it to sheets colored paper. Try and cover the whole page, if you can't it's ok since you are using a pretty color background.

Once our paper was all covered and dried, I drew a few eggs on the back and then cut out our egg shapes.

I had Rhiannon help me put them in an order that was most appealing to her little eyes. We punched holes in the tops and then threaded yarn through the holes. Which is also a great project for fine motor skills.

Sorry, no pictures of those steps. I promise you will figure it out though :)

We hung our banner on our fire place for all to enjoy. This was a fun project and a great way for us all to do something crafty together.

Check back tomorrow for a fun recipe to prepare the kids for Easter.


P.S. I am linking up at Made with Love Monday

Easter morn and a New Tradition

Since yesterday was Easter, I will not be doing an I {Heart} Mondays post. However, I do think you will seriously L-O-V-E our new Easter tradition.

This is the first year that Rhi was old enough to kind of grasp the concept of Easter. We of course put the emphasis on Jesus and the resurrection. She understood it to an extent but really we couldn’t expect much from a 2.5 year old.

I started really teaching her about it all on Friday. We explained Good Friday and how Jesus died for our sins and how because of His blood we are washed clean. She screamed “sins gone” That was music to this mommas heart. Later that night we covered it all again. After a long talk, we sat outside looking at the beautiful sunset. Steven told Rhi that God had painted the sky pink just for her. She cupped her little hands and yelled “Thank you Jesus”. Ah! She is understanding.

Sunday morning came and I refreshed her little memory, asking a couple questions about Easter and what it meant. Our Conversation went something like this.

Me: happy Easter
Rhi:Easter?
Me: ya, remember mommy told you how Jesus died and rose again?
Rhi: Jesus died, rose again!
Me: cool, huh?
...Rhi: sure.
Me: Sure? It's really cool! He did it all so we could live Forever with Him in heaven.
Rhi: oh ya. Silly me!

After church we came home to our new tradition. I was gonna tell you all about it but how much more fun is it to actually watch it going on. This is how we will be finding our baskets every year. Of course it will get more complex as the kids grow.