Easter

Despite the aftermath of Easter grass and candy wrappers and plastic egg-halves strewn about the house, I loved Easter this year.  There were great moments of real learning and nurturing of my kids' seedling testimonies as we talked about all the events of the last week of Christ's earthly life.  As we watched a movie about Christ's death and resurrection at the temple visitor's center, I loved seeing how still and focused Oliver and Silas were (they practically never sit still) as they watched and loved watching their concerned faces during the crucifixion break into huge smiles when the tomb was empty at the end.  When we got ready to dye our Easter eggs, I absent-mindedly plunked Oliver's egg into the green cup he requested right off the bat and Ashton and Isaac said, "Wait! We have to do a red egg first - remember?"  Oops.  I was glad to see that they really cared about this Bulgarian tradition we've adopted of always dying the first egg red in honor of the combination of death (blood red) and new life (egg) we celebrate at Easter.

As we ate together and celebrated the Last Supper on Thursday night (we tried to be as authentic as possible with foods from Christ's time), the kids insisted that we act out what we'd just seen in the Last Supper clip from "Jesus of Nazareth."  Isaac (as Jesus) explained the sacrament quite nicely and we all talked about how much we needed Jesus and wanted him to be with us always.  Isaac said "I'll be with you - I'll just be harder to see."  As we really went through what the scriptures teach us and wondered together about the details the scriptures leave out, each child had great points and questions to bring up (at least one child seemed to be listening most of the time!).  There were so many beautiful moments scattered throughout the week (along with the usual bickering and hurrying and yelling and hard moments, despite my pleas to make this week a little more peaceful and holy than the norm - but hopefully the spiritual moments will be the ones the kids will remember!).

Along with lots of great Easter stuff, we had 4 sets of houseguests this week - the Perry's (April and I got lots of great Power of Moms stuff done), the Reynolds (Allyson and I also got lots of Power of Moms stuff done plus it was so fun to meet her husband and kids for the first time), the Ransoms (we can never get enough of those guys), my parents and Charity (we can never, NEVER get enough of these people).  It's always this way - when it rains it pours!  But we love having guests and it made for an extra exciting and fun week.  We went hiking, we went swimming (the pool was heated, yeah!), we had several Easter egg hunts with various friends and family, we ate (way too much in my case), we worked on science fair projects, I trained several new Board members for Power of Moms (yeah!  we've got some great new people to help us!).  After all this I'm a little tired.  But happy, very happy.

Here's the Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt

Here's our Easter morning (the kids explored the fun stuff in their baskets after starting off the day by reading all about the first Easter in the scriptures using symbols in plastic eggs to keep it fun for the kids).

We thoroughly enjoyed General Conference.  I think virtually every talk was about families this time.  I came away with a strengthened resolve to be a better mother and wife, to grab more teaching moments, to increase my effectiveness when it comes to Power of Moms so that I can do more for other mothers while protecting my time to be a mom myself.  I could go on and on but I'll leave that for now - and I'll leave this whole thing and go hang out with my wonderful husband - I feel like I've hardly seen him all week with all the hoopla going on!

Here are the kids enjoying their last Easter Egg hunt of the year with some of their very favorite people: