Easter Weekend

Our weekend was more focused on what happened to the Saviour all that time ago. We obviously didn't have chocolate eggs anyway even though coming up to easter Rebekah apparently though the special day was called Easter Egg Day. As it was our first easter with no sugar or chocolate at all in our diet, I explained that one to her. She soon figured out we could have fun without the chocolate though. It was a bit like Hannah before Christmas not thinking there would be stockings because we weren't eating those things anymore, which is funny because there never was much of that in their stockings anyway, but I guess what was there stood out as the highlight to her! Anyway, we figured that we'd prefer to have all of our easter fun on the Monday, and leave Easter Sunday to be a focus on the Saviour, which was fine with the children too. The girls did all wear matching purple dresses that we found greatly reduced last week. They were excited to all match. I didn't think to take a picture, but they all chose white tights, long white top. and black shoes to go with their dresses. Only their hair, height I suppose, and length of dresses (it only went up to age 7-8 for Rachel and Hannah instead of 8-9 or 9-10, so their dresses were shorter in comparison - still way worth it for them though!) could give them away. Several people at church get them mixed up anyway, so that probably didn't help! I know some people think it's fun to have siblings matching, others avoid it totally, but our girls are always wanting to (even with the oldest nearly 9 and the youngest not quite 4) so this was their chance.

On Monday, we had our Family Home Evening in the afternoon as we tend to do, and that consisted of the following:

Song and prayer
Lesson: reading what happened in the Saviour's life up until his ascension into heaven
Learning part of a new song
Refreshments: pancakes, and a fruit flower
Activities: 1 - Decorating the bags the girls received from Will, Trisha, Naomi and Lydia for Christmas (finally)!

Here's a picture of their bags once decorated - they finally shared the flowers all out in arrangements that everyone was happy with. Peter has one of Rachel's bags that he has become especially attached to(!) and Daddy has the easter bunny who is about to start their egg hunt:



2 - Using their newly-decorated bags to collect with, an Easter treasure hunt (clues on paper eggs, and some plastic ones to find along the way filled with grapes, a plum and some money, and a surprise gift at the end. They each had their own trail to follow around the house (a different colour to find for each person), so people were running here there and everwhere for a while, especially once they got the hang of only picking up their own colour!
3 - Each planting their own herb to care for (a part of their gift at the end)
More singing and a prayer.

We lasted most of the afternoon and had a lot of fun. It's really what we'd have done out of a family home "evening" anyway, but gathering it all together was more fun in a way.


I thought you might enjoy these clips too. When they decorated their paper eggs on Saturday, Hannah helped Peter do a few. Those two always have a lot of fun together. Hannah is fantasic with Peter - she loves to get him doing things, has great fun playing with him, and always knows just how to get him involved. At tea on Saturday because they had spent so much time together (and she'd dished up his food to cool on his plate while we got everyone to the table) Peter wouldn't accept his plate of food when I gave it to him. He frowned and pushed it away, and then took it happily and started eating when Hannah then handed it to him! Cheeky boy. He was obviously enjoying his Hannah time immensely. :o) Anyway, this happened while Rachel and I were in the dining room sticking the last bits of paper onto eggs. The paper cuttings started off in a little pile! ... Oh, and you get to see the lovely gaps where Hannah's teeth are growing too!