We had a delightful Easter.
We usually spend Easter weekend in Iowa with Luke’s grandparents. Julie (Matt’s first wife & Luke’s first mom, for those of you less aware of our family’s backstory) went to be with the Lord in early April, so we always like to spend some time with her family during that time of year.
This year, however, some close family friends had a wedding Easter weekend – and asked Matt to officiate for them. The wedding was Saturday afternoon, so we were here in town Easter Sunday. We missed time with the McCutcheons, but it was fun to be at our own church to celebrate the resurrection.
A few weeks before, to begin to anticipate the sadness and joy of Easter, Tobin & I planted an Easter garden (Luke would have loved to help, but he has been super busy – between soccer practice and practice for the 5th grade musical, he’s not home much in the afternoons anymore.)I got the idea from Ann Voskamp’s blog, and am SO GLAD that we decided to make a little garden this year. We made pipe cleaner figures to act out the crucifixion and Easter morning in the garden – both boys really enjoyed that, and I think anything hands on like that really helps younger kids to understand. As a bonus, my friends at Tabletop Truths talked about Easter gardens on their blog, and ran a contest: The first 3 families to send pictures of their Easter Gardens got free Easter placemats. SCORE. Love those placemats so much! And love our Easter garden.
(We made the “tomb” mountain out of dough, from a recipe in Noel Piper’s Treasuring God in our Traditions… And it got moldy. Next year, we’ll use clay. We threw the tomb out – it did last long enough to bury and raise Jesus – and we’ll plant the rest of the plants in planters outside. Yay!)After church (and college group), we headed out to Grammie & Papa’s for Easter dinner. Fun times with cousins!
My contribution (along with making resurrection rolls with the kids) was a Honey Bunny from Great Harvest Bread Co. We got a cinnamon chip one for breakfast, and took a whole wheat one to Grammie’s.Tobin LOVED it. I almost wondered if we wouldn’t be able to cut him up. But we started from the tail, and managed to not break our soft-hearted boy’s heart.
We also did Easter baskets Sunday morning. I go back and forth with Easter baskets – we don’t pretend they’re from the Easter bunny, but we do give them gifts. Some years we’ve done just things that will help them grow spiritually – but this year, it felt like I’d just be doing that “because”. Neither of them need new Bibles, and I had already given some books and CD suggestions to grandparents, so we didn’t need anything else along those lines. So we just gave them summerish toys. And stuff I’d bought for Tobin for his birthday, but then decided we had plenty.
I don’t know. What do y’all do for Easter baskets? I so want Easter to be about Jesus and not presents… But I like giving my kids gifts, and we really don’t buy them things except at birthdays and holidays.
And yes, they’re still wearing their Christmas PJs. Mostly because they like to match, how cute is that?
In case you’re wondering what’s going on with our adoption… I’ve moved all adoption related information to a separate (protected) blog, available to personal friends and family (Blogger only lets you have 100 readers on protected blogs, so you'll have to be someone who knows me IRL). Comment or email me (reemeyer AT gmail DOT com) if you’d like an invitation to that blog!
