We had what seemed like a day-long celebration for Easter. Brad was up and out the door quite early for the sunrise service. I'd like to say that I'm such a Supermom that I'm able to master getting both boys ready on my own and out the door for a 7:30am service...but, uh, n.o. {I realize now typing that that it's pretty lame. You know, mom's who work outside the home have to have their children up and at 'em much sooner than 7:30 in the morning. And so yes. I'm a bit spoiled in this regard. And I know it.}
I digress.
Easter. Yes, ok. So we weren't over to church by 7:30, but the little boys and I were over there by 8:10 to enjoy the Easter breakfast with Brad and the other early morning risers.
We then enjoyed our regular morning service, and the boys went to Children's Church and took part in the egg hunt with the other kids.
Because Brad is gone so early in the morning, there's no way we can hunt for eggs before he leaves. Thankfully, the Easter Bunny is very accommodating of our schedule and, during Sunday school, he/she arrives to hide eggs in our backyard for the boys to find after our morning at church is done.
Before they ventured into the backyard to hunt, though, they blew off some steam in our side yard.
Then the hunt began!
The haul.
Man, that bunny likes chocolate!
Brad and I had talked briefly about how we wanted to approach the whole Easter bunny thing with our kids. Does the bunny give both eggs and baskets? Does the bunny give the eggs and then the baskets come from us? Do we forego the bunny altogether and tell the boys it's all from us? In the end, we decided that the bunny can take the credit for the hidden eggs, and we'll tell the boys their baskets full of goodies are from us.
After they finished finding and opening their eggs, we gave the boys their baskets. I like the idea of giving them each a new movie as a yearly Easter basket tradition, and everything else was a cheap, fun find for extra fill (color wonder, car, and a couple larger pieces of candy).
Our day concluded with an extra special Easter dinner, complete with ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls, corn, and frog eye salad. Oh, and a few deviled eggs. We'll have a few of those to eat as a result of our
egg art fun. We're not fancy enough for nice dishes, but regardless of casual serving bowls (note the Steamfresh corn bag!), it was a really good meal, with plenty of leftovers to last the remainder of the week.
Through it all, we wanted to be sure we were teaching the boys the real reason for the Easter season; that is, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. For about 10 days, we read different parts of the Easter story with some kind of visual reminder for that portion of the story. For example, for the story of Palm Sunday and Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem, our symbol was the donkey. Drew was really captivated by the story, and each day he asked about it. Reed sat still for about two seconds before he wandered off to do something else. We know that neither one of them really "get it;" grasping the concept of death is difficult enough but then tack on the whole idea of rising from the grave AND that in doing so Jesus saved humankind...well, that's a concept even difficult for adults to grasp. But I'm hopeful that seeds are being planted, and that faith will begin to blossom for our boys. Our greatest prayer is that they would come to know, love, and serve Christ. It is, by far, our greatest responsibility as parents.
{Update: I caught a small glimmer of Drew's understanding of Jesus' death and resurrection, or at least recognizing that Jesus died and then became alive again. We were listening to a children's praise song that Drew hadn't heard before called "Radical God." No where in the song does it mention Jesus' name, but it does say "He came to be a man and then he came to die. But he didn't stay dead, because he couldn't stay dead. He rose from the grave..." In the middle of singing, Drew stops and says, "Mom! They're singing about Jesus!" It made my heart very, very happy.}
