post edit note: THANK YOU so much for all the wonderful Easter ideas. I’ll be hard at work trying to figure out what to incorporate. And yes, the crib is now gone. I’m glad someone could use it and I wish I had a bunch more (because that would mean I had a bunch more babies that had filled them 🙂
Since my “focus” for this month is spirituality, it seems quite fitting that Easter will help me wrap it up (and general conference too).
As you are probably well aware, I love traditions. Adore them. And sure, we have a bundle of them for Easter. Probably our favorite is that when the kids wake up on Easter morning they each find a string the Easter Bunny has left at the end of their beds. They follow their string through a serious maze through the house which leads them to their Easter basket. Although pictures can’t really show the whole deal, this was last year:
Boy howdy do they ever love this stuff. We also get down to serious business when we paint our eggs. We don’t just die them. We get out our little paintbrushes and go to town making them beautiful. It’s one of my favorite things I get to do with my kids.
But we have been lacking in the spiritual tradition category. And that’s really too bad because that should be the biggest part of our Easter traditions.
We do always have a Family Home Evening lesson around Easter where each child gets to pick out a symbol to talk about from a basket (soap, white cloth, a rock, a mini crown of thorns, an empty egg, etc.). This helps.
And this year we have decided to use this week’s family scripture study go through Jesus’ last week through His death and resurrection. And we’re going to try making those “Easter cookies” on Saturday night (full of symbols…I’ll post the recipe later if anyone’s interested).
But, in trying to figure out how to bring more of the spirit into Easter I figured some people out there must have great ideas. If so, please send them my way!
Love, Shawni
p.s. This is a totally different topic but does anyone local want Lucy’s crib? Although it’s a little used it still works great and it’s cute and white. You can have the bumper pads and dust ruffle and all that too. If you want it, it’s yours…just let me know.
I want the crib!!!!! But I'm in Utah.
Thanks for your Easter thoughts and traditions.
Seems how I get TONS of ideas from you…I thought I might leave you with this website: http://beinglds.blogspot.com/
I think she has some good ideas.
I want the crib if no one else has asked you for it yet! Please give me the details! We have one crib but are in need of another with this next baby! 🙂 Thanks so much!
we do our Easter egg stuff on saturday, then do the "real" Easter on Sunday. We'll be listening to conferenct on both days this weekend though, and our cousins (not members) are having a family hunt on Sunday. We'll mesh the days this year I guess:)
And my mom always got us a book on Easter Saturday in our baskets. When the kids are little, it's a board book about Easter, but as we got older, it was whatever book she thought we'd like – about anything. She wrote "Happy Easter 1995, love Mommy and Daddy" inside.
Shawni, the best thing that ever happened to our family in regards to Easter traditions is the book "A Christ-Centered Easter" (sold in Deseret Book). I started using it 6 years ago and it has amazing ideas for lessons and activities for children of all ages. Each year I alter and add my own ideas to improve it, but it is a wonderful place to begin.
We start our celebrations on Palm Sunday, acting out Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem (we use our Nativity costumes) and some palm leaves from a craft store.
Each night we have a short devotional with a lesson on Christ. There are so many wonderful (and short) lessons that make Easter week meaningful. I do the Easter egg lesson on Sunday as well, which has always been a favorite of the kids. Next year I'm adding a symbol in an egg for each day since that part is so fun.
For the Easter egg hunt each child has their own color of eggs to search for (so we can hide the eggs for the older kids in harder places!) I put in a jelly bean or two, along with puzzle pieces (of a painting of Christ or the temple). Last year I didn't have puzzles, so put in mini pictures of Christ from the Ensign with a little note about each picture. The kids loved it. I've put together small books for sacrament meeting (for small kids) and cute note-taking materials for my older girls, Sunday DVDs or puzzles, games, etc. I've tried to go with religious-themed gifts and it comes together well.
You can check out some other really fun things we've done on my blog: www[dot]jonlund[dot]com/blog
(look at the entries "Palm Sunday" and "Easter and General Conference Prep"
Also, check my "Favorites" page for some materials – my version of the Easter egg lesson & my latest General Conference packet. 🙂 I hope this helps!
How much are you selling your crib for Shawni…getting ready for baby number 6 and girl number four. Our crib is not only broken it is the one I bought a used baby store when Justin was born…pretty sad. If you didn't already get rid of it, email me and let me know…would love it.
Anne Garner
annegarner@cox.net
Oh, and I always try and put church stuff in my easter basket also…little activity book, scripture marking pens, scripture bags, stuff like that. Sometimes hard to find little things
Ditto to Jen's comment about "The Christ Centered Easter" by Janet and Joe Hales. Definitely the best idea book I've seen {and used} for Easter.
In Bulgaria where I served my mission on Easter morning you say to each other, "Christ has risen" and the other person answers back, "Indeed He has risen". It's a good way to start off the day.
I just wrote a post about this. I was feeling the same way this year so we revamped our celebration to make it truly meaningful!
I would love the cookie recipe and all of the symbols associated with them.
I think we may need to start the string tradition. My hubby would have as much fun with that as the girls! 🙂
I am late on the crib bandwagon but would LOVE it if it happens to still be available.
I thought this was a fun way to teach the older kids who each church leader is and that can be part of the basket……
http://www.ambrosiagirl.com/blog/getting-ready-for-general-conference-hooray/
wow! I just found your blog by accident. You were mentioned on "For the Love of Naps" so I clicked over and saw your pic. I thought Oh my Gosh! It's her! I just got yours and your mother's book for my birthday this past week. I love it! So excited to be following your blog now. I'd love to see the recipe for the Easter Cookies you mentioned.
Yes, we loved Christ Centered Easter and my kids love the week of Family Nights! Getting ready to post about it today!
thank you for the great yard idea…i am going do that this year…i can't wait to see what the girls think!!!
we are doing eggs tomorrow and at this point it is all about dying them and using a crayon at the age of 2!
Hey Shawni, we have an Easter tradition that we do every year – here is a link to the post I did on my blog: http://kevinandrinna.blogspot.com/2010/03/easter-week-preplanning.html – with daily posts until Easter Sunday. Our tradition is based on the Christ-centered Easter book as well.
During our Easter egg hunt, the "big prize" egg is an egg with a cross in it (given to me by my grandmother). At the end of all the fun it gives us a chance to talk about the real meaning of Easter!
I was just thinking about those easter cookies, wondering where I would find the recipe. please post!
Easter Saturday is when the Easter bunny shows up. We did this growing up. (Some of our friends call it "Bunny Saturday"). Afterwards we'd go on a hike as a family in the NM foothills.
Every since my study abroad at the JC, I've tried to get up early Easter morning to watch the sunrise. While in Utah my husband and I would do a small hike up Rock Canyon with our scriptures early in the morning. But, that tradition has fallen by the wayside (or has been put on hold) with small kiddos + rainy Seattle springs. We for sure have a traditional delish Sunday breakfast with lots of fruit, dip, special French toast or oven pancakes. Along with traditional Easter dinner stuff I love to make baklava (totally easy). Hmm, maybe I need to think a little less food and a little more spiritual. 😉
Something we do that I love is having our own 'last supper' with the kids. We have different meats, fish, nuts, dried food, lebanese bread etc, basically anything that is similar to the kinds of food they would've eaten back then. While at the table we talk about the last supper and what it represents as well as reading relevant scriptures. (everyone might have one scripture infront of their plate). I did something similar to this as a young teenager at a friends home and it was by far one of my more significant Easters!! And the white cot would be great….are you still hoping to come to Australia anytime soon 🙂
Oh I would love the crib! We have twins and they are sharing a crib right now but we will need to get another soon. If it is still free I am very interested. gunnhp@hotmesa.com
Heather Gunnell
We always add something gospel related for them in their Easter baskets. (CTR ring, scripture colored pencils, church books, church dvd's, church cd's.) Deseret Book has a great selection (as you know) to find great stuff! Have you heard of the Easter Walk (new book out through Deseret Book? We did that for fhe this week and I think it's just become another Easter tradition. My kids LOVED reading it and the doing our own nature walk.
Hi Shawni, my mom told me to check out your blog. I love this Easter tradition and can't wait to do it for my daughter on Easter morning. Thanks for the great idea!
I probably won't get an answer to this so no biggie but if ever you have a sec or want to blog a line about it, what stuff do you use to color the eggs? Mine always look horrible with the stuff I buy here in the store, it's like they are all scratched up. I have been looking online and tried different methods but to no avail. Maybe you have a secret you'd like to share with me/us. In Romania we had a really good RED egg dye that I can't really find here. Anyway, Happy Easter.
Shawni, I posted extensively about our 2011 Easter celebrations on my blog (we did a few new things this year): http://www.jonlund.com
Look at the entry for April 19, 2011 called "Special Easter Week" (you can find it in "Archives" at the bottom of "Jen's blog" if you search for this later.
A summary of all of my Easter week posts are linked to here:
http://www.jonlund.com/blog/Lunds/Favorites.html