[spiritual easter]

After the excitement of the Easter party activities on Saturday, it was time to focus on the spiritual aspect of Easter today.

We had a good Sacrament meeting (though I missed most of the talks--I was in the mother's room feeding Alex. Yes, we do have a TV there, but there were other mothers in the room and from where I was sitting, it was a little hard to see the TV).

For dinner, we had ham, au gratin potatoes, asparagus, and carrots & green beans. Then we had a special Family Home Evening focusing on the true meaning of Easter. I had 12 plastic eggs with a scripture relating to the events of Easter and a small visual aid in each one. I also pulled out the pictures from my Gospel Art Kit to add in some of the background information. Christie and Jordan are really good at reading their scriptures and we had a wonderful FHE. Our dessert was more of the Easter basket cupcakes from yesterday.




While Steven and I prepared dinner, Alex hung out in his high chair. This is how he often sits--leaning to his left with his right leg propped up against the chair:



The weather was perfect today--a beautiful, warm, sunny day with cool breezes. I could see some of our trees are starting to bud and some of our tulips are ready to bloom. Our yard is starting to green up and it all was a great reminder of the blessing of "new life" that our Savior, Jesus Christ, offers us through His Atonement.

I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and that He suffered and died for us, and was resurrected on the third day. I know that as we strive to live His commandments, and take advantage of the wonderful gift of repentance, that the Atonement will have effect in our lives and someday we can live with Him and our Heavenly Father.

Happy Easter to all my blog readers and may you have a wonderful spring!

easter

[fun easter]

We had a family party on Saturday (4/11). I was in charge of it and it was all about the children!

We started off with lunch and then once everyone was fed and watered, we started the festivities.

We started off with the children making bunny rabbit masks.






Then they colored eggs.





Our family babies hung out with Julie and Steven while the egg coloring was going on.




The finished masterpieces.



While waiting for the eggs to dry, the little bunnies donned their masks and went downstairs to hunt eggs (the plastic kind). They had chosen a color of egg they would hunt for, and I also told them they had to HOP while they hunted their eggs.



The pink blur in the middle is Christie mid-hop. I made a video--if I can figure out how to get it uploaded, that'll give you a sense of the excitement.

The bunnies with their loot.



After the egg hunt, we had Easter basket cupcakes for dessert.




A good time was had by all, and it was fun to catch up with the family.

so much to catch up on

Wow, life sure has been busy around here lately Both of my older children had "milestone" birthdays these past two weeks. Christie turned 10. Jordan turned 8. In the LDS Church, of which we are members, turning 8 is the "age of accountability". The LDS Church is also known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Eight years of age is when children in our church are baptized. Jordan has been looking forward to turning 8 for quite some time--not only because he can be baptized, but also because he can join Cub Scouts. His first den meeting was last night.

Anyway, with the "milestone" birthdays, I told Christie and Jordan they could have friends birthday parties. We don't do friends parties every year--only on the milestone birthdays (5, 8, 10, 12, 16, and 18). We do celebrate as a family each year.

Christie decided on a High School Musical party. They played musical chairs to the High School Musical 3 soundtrack and had a backpack relay race. For the relay race, they took a backpack to a pile of school supplies, put everything in the backpack, ran back to their team, high-fived everyone, ran back, emptied the backpack and ran back again to hand it off. I made a yellow cake with star cutouts of the HSM stars. The frosting was supposed to be red but it ended up being a really dark pink.



Jordan wanted a rocket/outer space theme. The children made spaceships using round cake boards, black plastic bowls and the lids from Slurpees. They also had a Moon Rock Relay where they used tongs ("robot arm") to carry "moon rocks" (plastic balls from the dollar store) to a bowl at the other end of the yard. I made a rocket ship cake using Wilton's football pan. It turned out pretty good although next time I will use different colors so the different elements show up better. For party favors, I made candy rockets. I got SweetTarts, covered them with colored paper, hot glued a Hershey Kiss on one end, and cut out triangles and glued them on the other end for the fins. They turned out pretty good! If I'd had more time, I would have decorated them a bit more, but the kids thought they were great anyway!






We had a great time but two friends birthday parties plus two family parties in two weeks is enough! I'm birthday-partied out!