Getting Real on Easter

Last week I posted our plans for Holy Week here. There was a lot I wanted to do on top of what we already do each week for homeschool. It wasn't overly ambitious, but in my commitment to be honest with you about what goes on at my house, I'm going to review the week with you.

Out of all the plans I made, we probably hit about half of them. We watched the bible videos and sand the songs from the Mercy River blog post about Holy Week. But we never acted anything out, or did any of the activities, or craft projects.

We never got a palm leaf to put on our nature table.

We didn't start any seedlings (I didn't have that on the list but I had it in my head.)

We didn't sew little bags for our Easter egg hunt.

But here's what we did do.

Every night we read scriptures, sang a song, and watched a Bible Video for that day of the last week of Christ's life. And then we did Easter in Eggs. By last night, the kids were telling me the story. These nightly discussions were my favorite part. I got to clear up questions, assure Max that he would never be nailed to a cross, and listen to my kids try their best to quote scripture.

We had a "Passover-ish" Dinner. We asked the four questions and tried bitter herbs, haroset, unleavened bread, parsley in salt water,
and lamb. It was actually really neat, and the lamb was delicious, and our friend Miriam was here and it was just really special. There was no feet washing or service afterward, like I had hoped. But we made it through the dinner. I will be honest, though. This was probably only possible because Miriam helped bring much of it. She provided the haroset and bitter herbs and "fruit of the vine." I suggest doing this, but not by yourself.

We dyed eggs and hunted eggs and did all that fun Easter stuff.

We remembered our Grandpa Steve.

We tended to our Resurrection garden. This was our first year doing this and on Friday night we rolled a cardboard "rock" in front of the tomb and Max asked me if there would be an Angel in our garden on Sunday. It was such a sweet question that I couldn't help but make a little felt/wood/pipecleaner angel. And after that I knew I had to make Jesus and Mary. 

So on Sunday morning, the rock was rolled away and our angel sat on top of it. Then a bit later in the day I placed Mary in the garden with the angel. And finally in late afternoon, I called the kids in to tell the rest of the story when Jesus shows himself to Mary and put him in the garden. It was very special and I'm glad I took the time, last minute to add these pieces to our nature table.

We did Easter baskets for the first time in a couple years. I'm not a huge fan of them, but I'm glad we did. It would have been hard to see our cousins today and have the kids have nothing to talk about. Jane relished telling them about how in her basket there was a picture of the temple and book of Jesus stories and a rabbit.

Oooh, that was a definite last minute project that was totally fun. Listening to conference yesterday I whipped up these cute little knit bunnies. They're made out of a single square and turned out really cute. I tried to show Tommy the sounds bunnies make and now he thinks they're for blowing your nose on.

It was one of the best Easters ever for us. I loved celebrating and remembering every day of Holy Week. It's not something I did much of growing up as there just isn't a lot of tradition in the LDS faith around Holy Week and it's all focused just on Easter Sunday, which is fine. But preparing all week was a great experience.

I hope your Easter was equally wonderful!