Celebrating Springtime and Easter Activities

It's so wonderful to live so close to Grandparents. Keith's parents planned a nice brunch and egg hunt for the kids for Easter Sunday morning. I had to work on the holiday, but was able to be off for Saturday. We got up to a late start and missed attending the early service at church that day, but since we weren't racing to leave the house, I decided to break out the new muffin pan and make some buggy muffins.

Daniel enjoying a ladybug blueberry muffin. No ladybugs were injured in the making of the muffin.
How cute are these muffins! The muffin tin was a thank-you gift for helping with our church's Adventurers Club this past year. It certainly wasn't expected, but is very much appreciated. I see us getting lots of use out of this!

I caught Megan sneaking after more when she was really supposed to be brushing her hair for church. She wanted to see if a butterfly tasted any different than a snail.

We went to church in time for Sabbath School. Keith was on duty for scanning kids into the attendance book, and there was another teacher lined up to teach in my room, so I went to the sanctuary to enjoy the service. Perhaps waking up later than I had planned had put me in a grumpy mood, but I just didn't enjoy the service as much as I had hoped to. I've typed and deleted a half a dozen different things to say, but I will leave it at this - I am really missing our Kodiak church and how big it encompassed the community, yet how humble and real it was. I'm missing something, and I just can't figure out what it is.

We came home from church and our usual post-church lunch (when we don't go to Grandma and Grandpa's house) is to make sandwiches out by the pool. We had a great time and swam and napped and enjoyed the day. Then after quiet time, we decided to color some eggs.

Can you see Joshua's name? I taught the kids if they colored with a white crayon before dipping the egg in the coloring then the color won't stick to that part of the egg. They were making all sorts of designs.
Imagine our surprise when the eggs had a Bible verse in them. Which resulted in a chorus of "This is the day...this is the day...that the Lord has made....that the Lord has made...we will rejoice...we will rejoice...and be glad in it...and be glad in it....".
The craft above was made by Joshua at church. While we waited for the paint to dry on the eggs, Joshua read the First Easter story to the little kids while I washed the table, floor and counter tops (that egg dye sure did seem to travel in our house!).

After the eggs were dry, the kids colored them with markers.

Daniel's eggs are all people.

Joshua's eggs are decorated very nicely.

Megan got very detailed with her eggs.

Once the eggs were put away, we had a yummy dinner. Then for dessert, we made resurrection biscuits also known as empty tombs. We've made these every year and the kids really enjoy them.
A quick recap...pop open a can of Grands refrigerated biscuits. Roll out each biscuit and place a marshmallow in the center. The marshmallow is Jesus. The kids then anoint the marshmallow by brushing it with melted butter and sprinkle a little sugar and cinnamon on top.
Fold the dough around the marshmallow so that it forms a tight seal. You have to remember to seal up the tomb, or this won't work.

Then, while the tombs cook, take a quick dunk in the pool (you won't need to wait 3 days before looking inside your tomb, just about 15 minutes at 350 degrees in the oven will work).

Meow-meow on the porch, this is as close to outside as she gets.

When the timer goes off, pull the biscuits out and let them cool for a few minutes. Then cut them open and you will see that Jesus is gone. We talked about how people might have felt when they saw that Jesus was gone.

And then we ate our yummy snack.

For more information about this activity, see...http://homeparents.about.com/cs/eastercrafts/a/eastertradition.htm

Or here...http://day1.org/1869-resurrection_biscuits

Or here for really fancy ones...http://www.celebratingholidays.com/?page_id=3282