Last year a good friend of ours (namely Nicole!), wrote about her family's "Bunny Day". In their family, the Easter Bunny comes on Friday night, allowing the non religious festivities to happen on a busy Saturday morning and freeing up Sunday to focus on the "true meaning of Easter". I have waited ALL year to do this! For a long time we have sought for ways to make Easter as important and celebrated as Christmas. After all, in the words of President Hinkley: "The babe Jesus of Bethlehem would be but another baby without the redeeming Christ of Gethsemane and Calvary, and the triumphant fact of the Resurrection." (Think about
that for a moment!)
In the week prior to Easter, we drew from the scriptures, the church
pictures and a treasured book by Eric D. Huntsman:"God So Loved the
World" to make up an advent, if you will, of the Savior's final week of
mortal life. Each night we had a mini family home evening and discussed
the events leading up to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We discussed
the triumphal entry, the cleansing of the temple, Passover, the
instituting of The Sacrament / the Last Supper, Atonement, betrayal, and
all of the events of those last few days. It was a wonderful,
spiritually enriching week and we hope to make it even better next
year!
Love this book!
During the week, the kids were anxious for the Easter Bunny to come, as is to be expected. But we shook things up a bit and told them that we would like to ask the Bunny to put us on his Easter Bunny Saturday list - easily done by way of a quick email! The kids were thrilled to go along with it as it would help the Easter Bunny since he could divide his delivery load between two nights instead of one!
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| All ready for Easter Bunny Saturday to start! |
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| Jacob and Matthew paused mid-hunt-flight! Can you see the look of "Not now Mom!" on their faces?! |
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| Grandma and Lexie |
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| Zillia, Kali, Hallee, and Olivia |
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| Pleased with his haul! |
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| Four super great boys! |
Easter Saturday morning was as exciting and fun-filled as ever with the
added benefit of not having to handle sugared up kids in church and not
having to try to tone down their excitement and festivities in order to
keep the Sabbath Day holy. Win win situation! We had egg hunts and
attended the Jenkins' Family Easter Party and played with our cousins.
We finished out the evening with a discussion on what we thought the
Savior might have been doing, as a spirit, on this night so long ago and
how his disciples might have felt at this point.
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| Grandpa and Morgan |
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| Grandma lovingly refers to these three as "the triplets". Actually, the twins: Carly & Aaron and Avonlea were all born one day apart. |
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| 8 of the 10 cousins |
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| Selenia, Moira and Isaiah |
Sunday morning was quiet! We spent the day in reflection and discussion of the Resurrection. We watched some of the church's video clips about the morning of the First Resurrection. The kids dressed in their new Easter clothes - which they received in their Easter baskets the day before. We had a breakfast of fruit and sweet rolls and arrived at church early and unhurried. It was such a peaceful morning! No modern traditions to rush through while trying to balance with reflection on The Resurrection. We finished out the evening with a potluck family dinner and a Resurrection Eggs hunt, in which we did one final run through on the true Easter meaning by way of tokens of the Easter story in plastic eggs.
It was truly a wonderful Easter! John had been the skeptical one when I suggested doing this, but by evenings end, when the kids were all in bed early, he said how great it was! We are totally making this a permanent tradition!
