Wrap-up on Easter

Best Easter ever.

For the past couple of years, Easter has been part of spring break week so we've been on the road. While we still did most of our special Easter Week traditions, it was tricky making some things happen while traveling. It was SO nice to be home for the full Easter week this year and be able to focus more fully on the very special meaning of this week.

I already posted about our egg coloring early in the week. But here's a glimpse at the rest of our Holy Week.

Our "Last Supper" was great this year. The kids remembered so many wonderful little details about what happened at the Last Supper while eating lentil stew, pita bread, grapes and goat cheese by candlelight.


The neighborhood Easter Egg hunt was great:

 Everyone was very pleased with their haul - and very kind about sharing with younger kids who didn't find quite as many eggs.

Jared clearly loved his role as the Easter Bunny.

 

Saturday morning, we hid and found all the real eggs we'd dyed and then feasted on them for breakfast. We've adopted the Bulgarian tradition of "chooking" (knocking) our eggs against other people's eggs and seeing which egg can survive all the "chooking" without cracking. 

Here's what the kids found on Easter morning (after we watched the Easter story video)

(seriously, Ashton has GOT to let me cut his hair!)


After enjoying some nice candy appetizers, we had our traditional Eggs Benedict for breakfast:


Then we went to church. The kids sang beautifully with the Primary in Sacrament Meeting and I had a great time presenting a fun Easter lesson during sharing time in primary.

And of course, I had to take pictures of the kids in their new Easter clothes. But, of course, it wasn't easy to get a decent shot. I keep trying to convince the kids that picture taking just has to happen sometimes and that it can actually be quick and painless if they'd just stand there and smile for about 30 seconds. But somehow, it's still just plain hard to get a decent photo.

Despite warnings that we needed to stay in our Sunday clothes after church until after pictures, a couple kids ran upstairs to change out of their clothes before I could catch them. And they were NOT pleased when I insisted they put their Sunday clothes back on (and weren't exactly quick about it).

These two were happy to pose while we waited for everyone else to change.


Then when we finally got everyone somewhat dressed again (no shoes, I had to give in somewhere...) and got everyone positioned for the photo, a dog showed up and the poses quickly dissolved.

After the dog left, we tried again. I got everyone situated and posed and stepped back to take the photo, pleading for everyone to please cooperate since the battery light was blinking on the camera.

Just as I got ready to take the picture, Silas thought it would be hilarious to untuck his shirt and strike a crazy pose. Everyone got mad at Silas. Silas started crying.

I comforted Silas, got his shirt tucked back in, got everyone positioned yet again, and took some shots. This is the best we got - goofy-faced Ashton and red-eyed Silas. Oh well!

When the photos were finally done, my parents arrived and we enjoyed a lovely Easter dinner together.

One other thing we did this year was watch the last two episodes of the new History Channel mini-series, The Bible. Everyone was pretty much glued to it and I thought it was quite well done and mostly quite accurate according to what I understand and have studied about the New Testament. It brought up lots of great discussions with the kids and seeing things portrayed different ways really helps us think about how things really might have been.

Finally, I loved this post by my sister Saydi who wore herself out trying to make Easter special and meaningful through trying out a bunch of new traditions, some of which proved to be over-kill for her young children. I was her not so long ago. I've mellowed and figured out that often less is more. But I've also realized, like Saydi, that even when our heart-felt efforts seem to go awry, our kids are internalizing a lot of wonderful stuff and our hard work does pay off, especially when our work is accompanied by love and inspiration.