What a Holy Week

We had a very busy Holy Week!  It started off with 2 funerals of men in their 50s at our church.  The second was the morning of Maundy Thursday for one of our pastors.  As the daughter and wife of church workers, I especially felt a range of emotions as our lead pastor preached the service of his close friend and sermon writing partner.  They had written many sermons together, including the one for the funeral.  So many of our church staff and close friends of this pastor participated in the service.  It was a celebration of his life as we worshiped together for almost 2 hours.

Following the service, the kids and I drove 2.5 hours to LeClaire, Iowa and back!  We picked up 2 girls, Janis and Kendra, that were part of the church we served in Jacksonville, FL.  Both of these lovely ladies are students at Concordia in Seward, NE (where Jim got his BA) and chose to spend Easter weekend with our family!  What a blessing to have the extra hands in worship that night as we pulled into the church parking lot just 3 minutes before the service.  Then on Friday, Grandma Kris came down and another friend, Rachel, drove up from St. Louis to join us for the Good Friday service (Jim's favorite all year!).  Again, a blessing to have all the extra help with the kids during the past bedtime worship service!

Saturday morning included an Easter egg hunt in our front yard.  This was great timing because all of the "family" here for Easter was able to be included in this adventure for Joel.  Janis and Kendra did a great job hiding all the eggs, including some under grass clippings, white on a white car, and just out of Joel's reach on the mailbox.

Joel is ready to go on his Easter egg hunt!

Rachel with Joel

He was so good at finding the eggs this year!

Joel is trying to open an egg (mid hunt) with all of us watching.

The whole group minus Grandma Kris (photographer) and Kirstin (napper)

I love all the colorful eggs! :-)

We went to the Easter service on Saturday night so we could worship with Grandma Kris.  Then, Sunday morning was worship x3.  We started out at our church with the Bride of Christ processional.  This is the piece that Jim wrote as the processional for our wedding.  I loved that I got to hear it Saturday night and twice on Sunday morning with piano, organ, brass, and percussion!  We also went over to our church's other site for part of their Easter service, then back to our site for Joel to go to Kidstreet (Sunday school).

Our Easter Sunday family picture.  We had already taken our shoes off and that was more work than  we had energy for to put them back on for the picture.  We didn't take a picture in our Saturday night Easter outfits, but they were cute too. 

You can see the Easter wreath I made in a down moment on Saturday afternoon.  It will likely get a ribbon added to it for next year (oh, total supplies for this wreath was $2).

Mother-Daughter picture since we kind of matched in our Easter outfits.  My mom used to make her and I matching dresses for Easter (which I loved!!), I didn't do that.

I made a bunny cake.  I remembered seeing pictures of one like this that my mom made for my brother's birthday when he was 2 (I think).  I just wanted to see if I could do it and Joel loves cake.

We all loved having the company this weekend.  What a joy it was to share the weekend with friends.  Christ is Risen Indeed!  Alleluia!

Easter egg play

The Easter eggs have come out at our house (a week or 2 ago, I'm just slower in blogging about it).  I love the various ways activities that plastic Easter eggs can be used.  Here are a few things that we've tried out so far.

My first thought was a fine motor skill activity where Joel used Easter bunny tongs that I bought on clearance after Easter a few years ago for $.50!  

 They work much like scissors, except he got to pick up eggs and then place them in an egg carton (yes, I had a few of these that I'd saved to use for a theoretical project sometime).

Super cute boy having fun playing with the tongs and eggs.

I suggested to him to match the eggs as he placed them in the carton.  This added another element to our learning play.

We did some patterns.  I was thrilled because Joel was successful in completing the patterns I set up for him!

JOY!

Yes, my silly boy likes to make it difficult for me to get a good picture of him.  He loves looking at all the silly ones.  He left his eyes open until he thought I was taking the picture.  Notice the blur... he was also shaking his head.  I won't post all the attempts at a picture of his wonderful smiling face.

Here is the winner though! :-)  I love him!

I also created shakers out of the Easter eggs for Joel to match sounds.  I found a set of 6 different items that would fit inside the eggs.  I then created pairs (in non matching colors which was a challenge for this girl who organizes everything by color!).  So, Joel had to shake each egg to determine which 2 eggs had the same thing inside (without opening it...which was tough for a 3 year old).  Once he thought he had all the sounds paired, he got to open the eggs and find out what was inside.  He discovered paper clips, pom poms, beads, jingle bells, bouncy balls, and larger beads.  

Here you can see that Kirstin has joined Joel as our "neighborhood watch".  Since we love this big picture window in our house and spend tons of time looking out it, we've also added Easter egg window clings to it (thanks to both of the kids' Grandmas!).  

Have a blessed Holy Week and Happy Easter.