Happy Easter

Spring is here (which, in Utah, means coats and gloves one day and short and sunglasses the next)! My flowers are blooming and the trees are filled with blossoms. I love the hope this season brings. The hope of sunnier, warmer days; the hope of fun-filled summer days with the family; the hope of light - the light of the sun and the light of His son. This week we celebrated Easter. In years past, we have celebrated the traditions of Spring (egg coloring and hiding) on Saturday and our Savior's resurrection on Sunday. Sometimes, I feel like the fun of the spring traditions overshadows what this holiday is really about. So, instead of just spending one day on our Savior, I decided we would celebrate Him during all of Holy Week. Starting on Palm Sunday, we would take some time each morning to read about what our Savior was doing that day leading up to his death and resurrection. Most days that was it. We'd read, I'd pose some questions, and our day would ensue. However, there were a couple of days that we took more time to ponder His life and the events of that day. On Palm Sunday, I set out a palm leaf center piece then I made pan-fried hearts of palm to accompany our dinner that evening. The kids weren't overly excited about the hearts of palm so I may have to find a different recipe for next year, but they LOVED the palm "sundaes" we had for dessert. (I made the little palm trees out of pirouette cookies and mint leaves.)

Thursday was Passover. In the morning, we read about the last supper and Christ's suffering in the garden of Gethsemane. I am a little embarrassed to admit that I never really pieced together that Christ was celebrating the feast of the passover when He had the last supper. I guess I knew it because I had read it in the scriptures, but I think I glossed over it and didn't really register that His last supper was the Jewish feast of the passover. As I studied the traditions, rituals, and meaning behind the passover meal, I grew more excited to share this with my family, especially since we are studying the Old Testament in Sunday School this year. Moreover, we just finished studying about the Exodus and the institution of the Passover. Unfortunately, Danny had other obligations and wasn't able to join us for dinner, but Jeff, Jonas, and I sat down for a semi-traditional Passover feast. I decided to try to keep it as simple as possible. The Passover feast is a dinner event. There are at least 15 different steps and at least 7-8 of those happen before the actual meal. There are 4 glasses of wine (or sparkling cider in our case), ritual hand washing, tearing and hiding pieces of the unleavened bread, and more. Instead of going through each step, I summarized the whole dinner process and talked about how Christ probably used the moment of breaking bread and one of the glasses of wine to teach his apostles about the sacrament. We talked about the meaning behind the foods on the Seder plate and described how those foods taught the children of Israel about the coming of the Savior. For dinner, we had some tilapia, lentils, olives, grapes, charoset (the apple sauce type mixture from the Seder plate), and naan bread. 

Friday we read of Christ's crucifixion and pondered his death. On Saturday, Christ laid in the tomb...and we celebrated Spring. Jonas woke up super excited to finally color and hide eggs. All the other kids weren't going to be available to participate until that evening, but Jonas and I started the party early. I got several different coloring options for Jonas to decorate eggs (none of the older kids are interested in coloring eggs and Carter is still too young to understand, although he still "colored" with my help a couple of eggs when he arrived). He loved the speckled eggs that he created using dye markers and a little balloon sprayer. He took his time with all the eggs. He was patient enough to leave the eggs in the dyes longer than normal to get those deep, vibrant colors. I think I'm going to have to start stepping up my coloring options so we keep it fun and interesting as he gets more involved with the process.

He finished coloring the eggs and I finished all the food prep but the rest of the family still wasn't there. Jonas couldn't wait any longer so we decided to just hide his candy-filled, plastic eggs too. I hid them twice and he found them all twice. He even found one of the golden eggs! He got to have a head start on looking for those eggs (and Jeff even re-hid the egg Jonas found so the older kids could have the same amount of opportunities). Finally, everyone else showed up and the egg hunt continued. I think Jeff enjoys this more than the kids do. He does the golden eggs each year. He loves watching the kids agonize over finding those eggs. I fill 6 plastic eggs with candy for each of the kids (even our adult, married kids), but I'm pretty sure they never find all 6 of those eggs because they are too consumed looking for the golden eggs. There are 4 golden eggs. Casey, Dallin, and Danny found one each but as the night grew on, there was still one egg missing. The rule was that you could only claim one egg until everyone else gave up, then the missing eggs were free game. Well Dallin wanted to make sure he was in a position to get that missing egg if and when his other siblings gave up. He searched well into the dark hours for that egg. I was worried that perhaps the egg had moved since we'd had a pretty good windstorm whip through our area a few hours before, but Sunday morning, Jeff checked and the egg was still in its hiding place. (Yes...it was finally located. One of Dallin's friends actually found it...and got to keep the cash inside.)

Some of the fun Easter foods we ate.

Sunday morning, everyone woke up to their fun Easter baskets. Jonas loved his new military toys and, of course, all the candy. After diving into their Easter baskets, our focus shifted from the celebrations of Spring to the celebration of our Savior. The rest of the day we really tried to focus on our Savior and His resurrection. Since Laurin and Casey are moving into Gma Penny's house when Gma and Grumpy move into the little house we're building on our property, they wanted to visit that ward. Jeff decided to take the opportunity to allow his mom to go to church while he volunteered to stay with Gma Thompson. Thus said, Jonas and I decided to go with Gma Penny, Grumpy, Laurin, Casey, and Carter to that ward. Jonas was even excited to stay for singing time since Gma Penny is the primary chorister. Dallin and Danny attended a mission homecoming for one of Dallin's friends (and Amber and Jacob spent the day celebrating with Jacob's family). Later that afternoon, we gathered all the kids (minus Jacob and Amber) for a little Easter lesson and to make resurrection rolls (or empty tomb rolls). We discussed all the prophecies of Christ in the Old Testament and read of their fulfillment in the New Testament. We talked about what our Savior means to each of us and how the hope of His life, death, and resurrection has affected us. I was grateful for those moments of discussion. I felt like it was the perfect ending to our Easter week. I am grateful to have and to feel the hope of the season that comes from my Savior, Jesus Christ. I am grateful for a beautiful family that chooses love. I couldn't have asked for a better week/weekend.