Easter fun!

I just love Easter!  It is a fun holiday that the kids just love.  To me, it signals the start of spring, which I just love. 

I tried really hard this year to have a little more focus on the real meaning of Easter instead of just the candy, eggs and Easter Bunny.  Don’t get me wrong, that stuff is so much fun, and I love doing it, but I wanted to make sure that they no WHY we are celebrating Easter.  I found this little lesson on the internet.  We did it the Monday before Easter.  Mikayla had a lot of fun going through the eggs, seeing the symbols of Easter,  and learning a little more about the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus. After our lesson, we made Resurrection rolls like we did last year.   It is an easy object lesson that really hits home with the kids.  You take a marshmallow (Jesus) and roll it in butter and spices (the oil and spice used to anoint Jesus’ body).  You wrap the marshmallow in crescent roll dough (the cloth used to wrap Jesus’ body).  You place the rolls in the oven (the tomb) and bake them.   After you remove the rolls ( and make sure to let them cool!), you open the rolls to find the the marshmallow (which symbolizes Christ) is gone.  It was a good analogy for what Mary saw when she went to Jesus’ tomb on the day of His Resurrection. On the Thrusday before Easter, Mikayla land I dyed Easter Eggs after Gavin went to bed.  It was fun to have a little alone time with her.  We had a lot of fun writing on the eggs and mixing colors to make new colors. On Saturday, we went to my in-laws house to have some Easter fun. “Silly Aunt Ashley” go the kids these cute bunny masks.  Gavin particularly liked these. Mikayla also got to dye some more Easter eggs! After these activities, we headed outside for our Easter Egg Hunt.   The weather was perfect and we had a great time running around with Gavin and Mikayla. I love this picture of Gavin and his Nana – so sweet!

On Easter morning, the kids woke up and we went down to see what the Easter Bunny had left them. Mikayla was excited to get some gardening stuff – she loves to help daddy plant flowers. Gavin is always wearing Mikayla’s sunglasses, so we are happy that the Easter Bunny brought him some “boy”ones. On Sunday afternoon we went to my parent’s house for dinner and another Easter Egg Hunt. We had a great Easter weekend and really enjoyed spending time with all of our families.  I really cherish these memories with my children – they are growing up way too fast!