The entire month of March we sang the same song each morning and each evening during our family devotionals (a scripture, a song, a prayer). It was "Christ is Risen" from the children's song book. And because of this throughout the month, multiple times during the day someone in our family would just start humming or singing the tune. It was very cute and got us in the mood of the season. That was our first success. Our second success was that we used multiple random opportunities to testify of Christ and the Atonement and what that personally means to all of us. This helped the children understand more why we celebrate the death and resurrection of the Savior. This also helped us to be constantly thinking about Christ and His role in our life. Our third success was a little Easter Egg Scripture activity. I just found in quickly online. My original idea was to use a week long scripture sequence to move through the final week of Christ's life, starting with the triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, but I couldn't find anything suitable for children. Maybe one day I'll make up my own. So instead we did an activity that I've seen actually before. 12 eggs, 12 scriptures, and 12 little visuals as well, each depicting a scene or event from the Easter story. Before we even did our egg activity (all on Saturday instead of o ne a day for 12 days) we read the entire Easter story out of the Gospel of Matthew. We broke it into 3 chunks - the last Supper and the Garden of Gethsemane, the Trial and the Crucifixion, and the Burial and Resurrection. The kids really loved listening to the story directly out of the Bible, which has prompted us to change our family scripture study. Instead of reading a verse or two all together (I read a few words, they repeat) we are going to read short stories directly out of the scriptures instead. So I guess that was success 4. Back to success 3, with the egg activity, the kids were really excited to find out what was in the eggs, and since we had read the story so recently, they tried to guess what each visual was to represent before we read the scripture and talked about it a little. It was a lot of fun.
We headed home exhausted, but Derek said he felt like it was one of the best Easters ever. We both attribute it to the fact that we didn't talk about Easter bunnies or candy, although we did color eggs and have baskets and eat chocolate, but that we spent so much time focusing on Christ.
Another aspect of this Easter made the resurrection and the Atonement seem much more personal to me. Some of you know from my blog post and things on facebook about my friend from middle school, Bethany (Lindstrom) Hersey, whose baby was born just 4 days after my little Kaleb. But her baby was born with 4 congenital heart problems. He spent the first maybe 3 weeks of his life in the hospital undergoing surgery and such, he got to go home for 57 days, then back to the NICU for more surgeries and he was there for the last 8 weeks of his life. He died the Thursday before Easter. So many of us had been praying so hard for this sweet little baby. And poor Bethany and her husband, who just adored their little boy, were and probably still are just devastated and totally heart broken. She does not have a testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I have testified to her of what I know, but it is up to her to decide if she will believe or not. Still, how grateful I am for my testimony of Christ. That I know that he suffered the Atonement for us, that He bled for us and died so that we could repent of our sins and return to live with our Heavenly Father. I am so grateful to know that His resurrection brought to pass the resurrection of all of us. I am grateful to know that little Mathew, through the power of the Atonement, passed away and went straight to our loving Heavenly Father and that his place is secure in the celestial kingdom. How I wish Mathew's parents understood that and knew that their little baby is not lost, but with God and waiting for them if they too will accept the Gospel of Christ. I could go on,but my own little babies are crying and need attention. Anyway, I know Christ is our Savior and Redeemer and I am so grateful for this knowledge.
We dyed eggs.
We colored eggs and taped them to our window.
On Easter Sunday morning our very first Osternglocken (Easter bells - daffodils) bloomed. Of course, it's Spanish Fork so the wind was blowing and the photo doesn't look very good.
We had Easter baskets Sunday morning.
We had an Easter breakfast cassarole, hot chocolate, and strawberries and bananas for breakfast.
We attended the 9:00 church services up in Midway (Derek's parent's were in church in SLC for the morning, and although their ward didn't start until 11:00, timing just worked out better for us to attend at 9:00 and then go to their house afterwards.
After church we headed over to the Heber City to my grandparent's grave - another opportunity to testify of Christ's resurrection and of the Atonement.
And then we were off to my in-laws for an afternoon of playing with cousins, and Easter basket hunt, a chicken race, and of course, a ham dinner with family. This year Derek's cousin Yuri and his wife Manu were in town from Switzerland so we got to visit with them and it was a lot of fun. Marlies also had a little Easter program with a variation of the Easter Egg Scripture activity we did on Saturday.
We headed home exhausted, but Derek said he felt like it was one of the best Easters ever. We both attribute it to the fact that we didn't talk about Easter bunnies or candy, although we did color eggs and have baskets and eat chocolate, but that we spent so much time focusing on Christ.
Another aspect of this Easter made the resurrection and the Atonement seem much more personal to me. Some of you know from my blog post and things on facebook about my friend from middle school, Bethany (Lindstrom) Hersey, whose baby was born just 4 days after my little Kaleb. But her baby was born with 4 congenital heart problems. He spent the first maybe 3 weeks of his life in the hospital undergoing surgery and such, he got to go home for 57 days, then back to the NICU for more surgeries and he was there for the last 8 weeks of his life. He died the Thursday before Easter. So many of us had been praying so hard for this sweet little baby. And poor Bethany and her husband, who just adored their little boy, were and probably still are just devastated and totally heart broken. She does not have a testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I have testified to her of what I know, but it is up to her to decide if she will believe or not. Still, how grateful I am for my testimony of Christ. That I know that he suffered the Atonement for us, that He bled for us and died so that we could repent of our sins and return to live with our Heavenly Father. I am so grateful to know that His resurrection brought to pass the resurrection of all of us. I am grateful to know that little Mathew, through the power of the Atonement, passed away and went straight to our loving Heavenly Father and that his place is secure in the celestial kingdom. How I wish Mathew's parents understood that and knew that their little baby is not lost, but with God and waiting for them if they too will accept the Gospel of Christ. I could go on,but my own little babies are crying and need attention. Anyway, I know Christ is our Savior and Redeemer and I am so grateful for this knowledge.
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