Our Easter Week

Happy Easter

...by his wounds
we are healed.
Isaiah 53:5b

As our pastor reminded us in his Easter message ... whether or not you believe in Jesus, the world gives a nod to His existence whenever we write out the calendar year. Our years are set as either B.C. (Before Christ) or A.D. (Anno Domini or "in the year of our Lord"), centering around the date Jesus arrived on earth. This past week, our family focused on what happened around 33 A.D. - the death and resurrection of Christ.

We have a strong desire to raise a Christ-centered family. We desire to live out our faith in front of our children in such a way that they see we love a good, patient, merciful and powerful God and that what we enjoy is a personal relationship with God, not a religion. We want our family to "glorify God and to enjoy Him forever" (Westminster Catechism).

This Easter, we especially wanted to help our children enjoy God as we focus on what He did for each one of us through His death and resurrection. I have heard and read about many neat Easter traditions and I hope to slowly add a few more as the years go by. Here is a peek into some of the traditions we did enjoy this past Easter week.

Palm Sunday - Three Easter baskets, three matching outfits (thank you, Nana & Papa!) and three smiling girls. Since we wanted to help the girls wake up on Easter Sunday excited about celebrating the resurrection (as opposed to goodies in their Easter baskets), we decided that in our family, the tradition would be to give them their Easter baskets a week early on Palm Sunday to help herald in Easter Week. We also decided to make sure each basket contained items for their spiritual growth. This year, they each received a book about the meaning of Easter and have enjoyed reading them. Thanks, also, to those of you who sent Easter care packages and sent thoughtful treats to add to their baskets.


Tuesday (Springtime Cookies) - Ever since our spring-themed cookie cutters arrived in a care package, the girls couldn't wait to have a few friends over so that they could put them to use. The girls had three friends over and they all did a great job of icing and decorating the fun springtime cookies. It saddens me to think about how I (back in high school) imagined Jesus to be distant or stiff. But I want our girls to see that the Jesus I now know would love to sit down by them and to decorate cookies right alongside them, enjoying their giggles and company.


Good Friday (Resurrection Eggs) - You may have seen this package in stores recently. Resurrection Eggs are a tool designed by Family Life and we have been using them ever since Verity was a baby. The purple egg carton that David is holding in his lap contains 12 plastic eggs, each containing a different symbol of the Easter story. The girls each take turns opening an egg and hearing how that symbol relates to the Easter story. We hope to continue this tradition for years to come because it is an easy way to help the girls remember the events of Easter week.


Saturday (Easter Hollow Cookies and Egg-Dyeing) - Another family tradition is to make Easter (Hollow) Cookies. Many of you have seen this recipe. Similar to the Resurrection Eggs, each ingredient in the recipe also relates to the Easter story. For example, in the above photo, the girls are beating pecans in a ziploc bag which give us an opportunity to talk about how Jesus was beaten on Good Friday. Then they smell the vinegar as we talk about how Jesus was given vinegar to drink on the cross. And so on. The dough is then placed in the oven and they seal the door since Jesus' tomb was sealed (our girls just used duct tape). In the morning, the cookies are hollow to show that Jesus' tomb was empty on Easter morning. The girls LOVE to help me bake and this recipe allows them to focus on the Easter story, too! And of course, they loved dyeing eggs after we baked the hollow cookies.

Later that afternoon, we really enjoyed the opportunity to gather with friends to celebrate Easter with dinner and an egg hunt. The kids were very excited about the hunt ... the photo below shows them after the hunt was over.


and finally ... Easter Sunday. We went to church in the morning and then enjoyed another fun Easter meal at the home of our friends, Dan & Dina. Of course, our Easter celebrations will not end on April 8th. It is something we celebrate and are grateful for every day of our lives. While reading the Easter board book Annalise received in her basket, she looked really concerned about the photo showing Jesus with the crown of thorns on His head and she said with conviction, "I am going to put a band-aid on Jesus' head." As our children get older, we hope they continue to grasp what Isaiah said, "...by His wounds, we are healed."

Happy Easter to you. We love and miss you and would love to hear about each of your Easter celebrations!