A Short Easter

Or not so short, this year Easter at our house was 7 great days. I read a quote recently that hit me like a ton of bricks, don't you just love when that happens.

"There would be no Christmas if there had not been Easter. The babe Jesus of Bethlehem would be but another baby without the redeeming Christ of Gethsemane and Calvary, and the triumphant fact of the Resurrection" Gordon B. Hinckley

Last year in the Ensign at Easter there was an article all about the week before the Crucifixion and resurrection. It stood out for me and the minute I was hit with the Gordon B. Hincley quote this year I went right back to this article. The author, Eric D. Huntsman did another work. He put together a Holy Week packet I went straight to Kinko's and had a fabulous time printing and putting together our Holy week packet. We began on Palm Sunday. We talked about the Triumphant entry of the Savior and our week began perfectly. The kids had a BLAST talking about our perfect KING,our Savior Jesus Christ. They had a ton of fun doing Hosannas!! We ended up having several Hosanna parties, hosted by Ora during the week.

On Monday we had F.H.E. and talked about the cursing of the fig tree. we helped them understand that we need to be producing "good fruit" for our Savior in order to call ourselves his servants. We continued to have F.H.E. every night during the week. It was a week full of spiritual thoughts and precious moments shared with our children. I highly recommend you guys try this in your own families. We did have to modify the packet to fit our family and our own children's ages. Our plan is as the years go by this week will become something our family looks forward to every year. We had so much fun playing and having Family Home Evening for 7 days straight. It was something that I hope sticks with our kids and as we come to this time next year they will remember and be excited to begin again.

As for Easter Day we had a great time. After Christmas Joe and I were able to go to a clearance store closing and got a fabulous deal on these wiggle carts. It was so hard to wait for Easter morning to give them to the kids, but we made it and then on Easter day it was snowing. So we had wiggle cart races in the kitchen. So fun. I even got on and had a ride and race with Michael.

Abby broke into the candy and did not stop till she was done!

Ora spent her whole day in between conference on the cart. She ate and had a blast hunting and re-hiding the eggs all day. They put together a egg hunt just for Joe and I. It was so much fun to have it be conference weekend. We just stayed home and had a ton of fun together.