Happy Easter

 We love Easter and all the wonderful traditions connected with it.  We had a great time studying the life of the Savior during our morning devotionals and rejoicing in the knowledge that Jesus lives and has broken the chains of death for all of us.  The pictures are a little out of order, but here are the kids Easter morning, if energy allows, we love to have matching Easter outfits.  Last summer Lauren said she wanted to learn how to sew.  We went to the fabric store and she picked out some clearance sale fabric in which to make a skirt.  Emma perked up when she saw it and said she may also want to learn how to sew.  So she picked out some coordinating fabric.  Well the younger girls jumped on the bandwagon, and before we were out of the store they all had a piece of fabric for their summer projects.  We got busy, school started again and the fabric sat there for months until I left for my trip to London.  I had some of it pleated so I could smock it on the long plane trip.  Then it sat there for more months.  Then I realized we needed a deadline.  So Easter or bust we said.  Lauren and Emma sewed most of their skirts themselves, and I pulled a few all-nighters, but thanks to a few miracles, their new outfits were magically in their baskets on Easter morning.

 We missed having Daddy celebrate the day with us.  He was with all of his siblings celebrating the life and legacy of his Grandmother at her funeral in Utah.  However, he did participate in the special day because he helped make the clues for our Easter morning treasure hunt, and e-mailed them to me.  The Easter bunny hides them of course, but a few clues from the parents makes it a little more challenging.

 The Easter bunny decided to be a little more health conscious this year, so there was lots of fruit, veggie/fruit juice and baked chips.  A few little candies seemed to be plenty. 

Lauren's clue led her to look in the sugar canister.  She looked and looked, emptied it out, checked other canisters, sifted, sorted, but could not find it anywhere.  She was stumped, until she looked at the lid, and there was the next clue, in an egg taped to the bottom of the lid.  
















She eventually found her basket under some clothes in the washing machine.

McKay was excited to have a new white shirt and tie in his basket.  Russ has been working with him, and he's now able to tie a real tie quite successfully.  It's hard to believe he'll be 12 in a few months and receive the priesthood and pass the sacrament at church. 

Really, who needs baskets when food storage cans are abundant.  We've used those cans for everything from drums to craft supply organizers.  Apparently the Easter bunny has lots of uses for them too.

I suppose there may be something wrong with Christmas pajamas on Easter morning.  I'm just such a "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without" kind of a gal, it seems wrong not to milk those jammies until at least a toe or two is sticking out.

Another tradition our family has recently started is attending Good Friday service.  Since our church doesn't usually hold a service that day, we choose various community churches to attend.  Last year we went to a beautiful service but realized a little too late that it was not meant to have children attend.  It was a bit stressful to keep them perfectly quiet throughout the service.  This year I knew Russ was not in town, so I was a little concerned about taking all six kids, especially with Matthew at his crazy boy stage, to a church service by myself.  I was encouraged when I saw a service advertised as a "family worship service" in which a Easter Egg hunt would be held after.  It wasn't technically their good friday service, it was on Saturday, but it was a fun experience.  When I saw the rock band on stage, I knew my kids could make some noise without drawing too much attention to ourselves.  The pastor went in a  helicopter and dropped eggs all over the grass before the hunt.  Our kids weren't quite aggressive enough, so they each ended up with about 1 egg, but it was fun never the less. 

As part of our weekly "pre-school" activities we dye eggs with lots of different techniques, we had nature eggs, marbled eggs, silk-tie eggs, tye dye eggs, electric tape eggs, panty hose eggs, etc etc. 

Then we decoupaged fancy oatmeal can baskets.  We went on a hunt with them afterward.