An Easter FHE

Preparation: 

• Print the last two pages of handouts from this link for each person in your family.
• Make sure everyone has a copy of the Bible and a pen or pencil.
• Have the video "His Sacred Name" ready to play for the family (less than 3 minutes)

FHE LESSON:

What is coming up this weekend? (Easter!)

Why do we celebrate Easter? (Christ atoned for our sins and died for us, then rose on the 3^rd day, so we can repent and live with Him and Heavenly Father again after this life.)

Have everyone get out their scriptures and give them the worksheet to look up the scriptures listed to learn more about Christ's suffering.

Watch the video “His Sacred Name” on lds.org and give each person the handout to color.

Share the scripture we are “ponderizing” this week, Isaiah 53:3-5:

“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

 “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

 “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”

Focus on the final verse. What does it mean “and with his stripes we are healed”?

How does that make you feel?

What are some ways we can show our gratitude and love for all that our Savior has done for us?

Encourage family members to ponderize Isaiah 53:3-5, especially vs 5, and to seek and carry out ways to show Heavenly Father and Jesus their gratitude for the atonement and resurrection. 

End with testimonies.

As an activity, color Easter Eggs. Make a list of people (single sisters and elderly in our ward) to share our eggs with and set aside some times to go visit them to give them their colored eggs.

Easter

I mentioned that I just haven't been very good about taking photos lately.  But I do have a few from Easter this year.  Just not a ton, and what I have isn't all that great. :S

We always have fun dying eggs.  We like to dye a lot, and it's way more than we can eat ourselves, so then we went around and shared some with some of the older, single ladies in our ward.  We figured they probably wouldn't have colored eggs to enjoy but might like some spring fun.  They all seemed to really appreciate it - and the little visit that went a long with it. :)

After the eggs were all dyed, the girls decided to dye their hands!  lol

There are even fewer actual Easter photos. :(  So, this collage includes the fun girl-trip we took to the nail salon to get our toes done, as well as a picture of each girl and her basket, and of course a pic of the girls in their Easter Sunday dress.  At least I have this much. ;)

I am really going to try to be better about taking pictures again.  I do love it, usually.  I guess I just needed a little break.  Break's over! ;)

Easter Sunday

We had a great time at church on Easter.  The spirit was especially strong!  I'm so grateful for my Savior and all he has done for me! 

After church, we headed to the Hills for dinner and fun.  They had the house decorated very cute and fun, and dinner was delicious!

(Click on collages to enlarge.)

Rori... That picture cracks me up!  Most of us were visiting at the dinner table after we had finished eating, then MJ and I saw Rori walking around with that butterfly net on her head, laying the toy trumpet!  We just started giggling, and I grabbed my camera.  Classic Rori! lol

Ryan made THREE fabulous cheesecakes for dessert: Layered Hazelnut, Chocolate Cherry, and Chocolate.  They were all SO. GOOD!!!

Rori again... lol.  For some reason, she started eating her cheesecake with her hands.  The flash was a little bright in that pic, but I couldn't pass up including it.  ;)

The weather was kind of wild!  It would go from sun, to rain, to rainbows, and back to sun again.  Later we saw this crazy cloud that almost looked like a twister touching down (but it was just sitting there, not swirling or moving at all)!  The rainbows were so awesome!  This has to be the brightest rainbow I've ever seen, and it was a full, double rainbow!  Check it out!

After eating, things started to get a little wild.  It all started when Mary Jane wanted to show us the HUGE teddy bears she bought for my cousin's litte girls:

But then another bean bag and some pillows were added to the cushy pile and this started happening:

Easter Dresses

Easter Fun

On Monday, we dyed Easter Eggs for FHE.  We always dye more than we can eat, so we shared with our neighbors who don't usually dye eggs.  We still had quite a few for ourselves so we've been enjoying egg salad sandwiches and salads topped with hard boiled eggs.  Yum!

Then this morning we woke up to find that the Easter Bunny had come during the night!  He likes to visit us a day early so we can enjoy the egg hunts and baskets on Saturday and then spend Easter Sunday focusing on the real reason for Easter.  We really appreciate Easter Bunny's thoughtfulness. ;)

The girls were very happy with their spoils...

We will be having dinner with the Hills tomorrow so there are sure to be more Easter photos to come, not to mention pics of Easter Dresses!  (It's fun to have girls, especially when they let you dress them up. lol) 

Spring Dresses

Two weeks ago, the girls and I got dolled up in Easter outfits.  And I forgot to take pictures.

Today, the girls both got dolled up in Easter outfits again (they both had two because I couldn't make up my mind, lol).  Plus, I tried a new hairstyle on Rori.  Two weeks ago, I just braided her hair and put it in a bun.  It looked really nice.  This time, I made two french braids and criss-crossed them in the middle.  I got the directions here, though I did Rori's just a tad different.  (Thanks for the link, Debi!)  I love how it turned out!

And this week, I did take pics:

Cause that's how we roll...

For Easter dinner, we relied on tried and true recipes, except for the rolls.  I was pretty sure they'd be an easy hit. ;)  I used a recipe from The Pioneer Woman.  We had Buttered Rosemary Rolls.
 


I had to make a couple of adjustments.  I don't have an iron skillet, and we needed way more than 7 rolls, so I used two 9x13 pans, fitting 12 rolls in each.  I also used sea salt, but not coarse sea salt (didn't have that).  My rolls said to bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, I let them stay in for another 5 minutes to get more brown on top.  They tasted great!



It was an easy recipe, we'll definitely make them again. :)

REJOICE!!!

He is risen! He is risen! Let the whole wide earth rejoice!

















Remember that today not about bunnies, eggs, or baskets, but about the atoning sacrifice of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! Teach your children the true meaning of Easter and they will have peace, hope, and joy their whole life! How grateful I am for the sacrifice made for me! I will praise His name forever! :)

Happy Easter!

Let's Color Easter Eggs

Something I learned yesterday:  My friend/neighbor, Susan, doesn't color Easter Eggs!  She says it's because she can't stand the smell of hard-cooked eggs and only one or two members of their family will actually eat them, so she just doesn't make them... and therefore, no coloring Easter Eggs.  Her poor, deprived children!  Susan and her daughter, Kaitlyn happened to come over while we were coloring ours yesterday.  It was totally new to them.  Thankfully, we were here to help enrich their lives with the joys of vinegar, dye, and hard-cooked eggs. ;)  I might have even converted Susan - she made two herself! lol



They turned out beautiful!  I especially love Sami's "watermellon"... LOL.  Oh, and I love the one I made that says, "I <3 Ryan" lol.  Colored eggs are just so... happy!  I like them!  And I like to eat them!  Egg salad sandwiches, deviled eggs, hard cooked eggs topping salads.... mmmm. :)  But since even we couldn't eat this many eggs by ourselves, we'll send some home with Sami for her family. :P

In case you were wondering...

Your Easter Egg Says You Are Social

You are cheerful, friendly, and open minded. You do your best to make sure everyone is happy, including yourself. Empathy comes easily to you. You are very forgiving. You don't hold grudges. You easily forget about any negativity in your life.

The Easter Egg Personality Test

Blogthings: We'll Tell You The Truth... Someone Has To!

Sun+Friends+Swings=A Good Time

I'm going to attempt to do some catching up here, but it won't be in order.  I'm so far behind... 

Saturday morning was our ward Easter Egg Hunt at a local park.  Unfortunately, I couldn't stay for the whole thing, so I didn't get pics of the egg hunt. :(  But I did get a few pics of Rori playing with her friend while Acadia helped the big kids hide eggs.



We got so lucky - it had been raining for a few days before, and it started raining again the day after this, but Saturday was beautiful!!! 

Easter Dresses

Not the best picture in the world, but it's what I got.  Neither of the girls was being especially cooperative for photos, they just wanted me to take it and get it over with. lol

The Life of Christ

If you are a frequent reader here, you probably remember me talking about the Festival of the Nativities every December.  It's a fantastic display of nativities the first weekend in December.  We love it!

Last year, another stake in our church started The Life of Christ display for Easter weekend.  They enlisted the help of one of the ladies in charge of the Festival of the Nativities and kind of patterned it after that.  The cultural hall has displays depicting different parts of the Savior's life.  I didn't get pictures of every display, but I'll share the ones I did get.

It starts with His birth.  (I didn't get a picture of it.) They had a stable scene and paintings/art and items that showed and represented His birth.

Next was His youth.


Then depictions of His ministry...




The Last Supper.   You can't tell from this pic, but the windows in this backdrop were awesome! 



Gethsemene...  It was hard to get a picture that really shows how beautifully this was set up. 





There was a display about the scourging, but I didn't get a picture of it. 

And then, the crucifixion...





And then, the empty tomb.  (In this picture, you can see that there were beautiful tiles with scriptures on them at almost every display.  The tile for this display is inside the tomb.)



I think for most Christians, this is where it would end.  But we know there is more.  Next, was a representation of His visit to the Americas.



And at the end of the Cultural Hall, were scriptures and pictures of the Resurrected Christ in His glory.  I didn't get a very good picture of it, but this is from the opposite end of the hall, looking toward that end:



Also in the above photo, you can see some of the displays in the center of the room.  This is a close up of part of the display.  You can't tell from the photo, but the piece at the very top of the photo was a water fountain.



Just as with the Festival of the Nativities, there were musical performances and video presentations in the chapel and there were also Children's Rooms.

In the main children's room, there was a tent full of wheat for the children to play in:



An art project; there were popsicle sticks glued together and the kids could color/decorate them how they liked, once the kids were done, an adult pasted a picture of Christ with some children to the back of it, the finished product was a framed picture of Christ for them to take home.



They had a little bit of dress up:



And a storyteller who told the children stories of Jesus.  In this pic, she is telling them about how people laid out palm branches for Jesus' donkey to walk on as He entered the city.



The other children's room was called the Angel Room.  The kids could dress up as angels, though mine didn't want to.  They could also color pictures.  There was a huge mural of Christ surrounded by angels.  And there were some sheep for young kids to play with.





Attending The Life of Christ display was the perfect way to start our Easter weekend!  We are looking forward to attending every year.  :)

Coloring Easter Eggs

Last night we colored Easter Eggs!  Fun times!  Rori took a little while to catch on, she mostly just wanted to hold the eggs.  Near the end, though, she started to color on the eggs with crayons and liked that a lot, then we dyed them whatever random color she yelled out, and called it good! lol

Here are just a few pics:

Thank you Easter Bunny!

Do you remember that commercial?  Oh come on, sure you do!  Here, let me refresh your memory...



Okay, so... moving on...

Last night, the Easter Bunny came!  He likes to come to our house early so we can focus on our Savior on Easter Sunday.  We really appreciate how thoughtful and accommodating he is. :)

We had fun finding eggs and looking at baskets and then we were off to our church's egg hunt.  It was outdoors and thankfully, the rain held off and things went great!  It was cloudy and cool, but we all had fun and I hope they plan another one like this again. 

Here are some photos from our morning...





(Yes, Cadi is wearing Christmas PJs.  I pointed that out to her and she said, "I don't care!")