Easter

A few things we have been doing for Easter...

                                                     Making our Resurrection Garden

                                                         
                                                        It is starting to sprout

                                         We made these yummy empty tomb snacks.

                                                    Jesus paid our debt in full.

For Easter week, starting tomorrow, which is Palm Sunday we will be reading through the Easter story in the Bible. Instead of doing an Easter basket I planned out some things we will do each day after we read.
                     Sunday we will read about Palm Sunday. Palms make me think of coconuts so I bought Almond Joy and Mounds candies for the kids.
                     Monday we will be reading the Scripture where Jesus talks about the parable of the Fig Tree so I bought Fig Newtons(YUM).
                     Tuesday we will be reading about Judas agreeing to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver so we will have chocolate coins.
                     Wednesday we will be reading about the Last Supper so we will have oyster crackers(mini-saltines) and grape juice.
                     Thursday will be the betrayal in the Garden by Judas, where he kisses Jesus so I will give the kids Hershey Kisses.
                    On Friday we will be reading about the crucifixion and making a crown of thorns out of pretzel sticks and chocolate, also we will make our Resurrection Rolls which is a tradition. If you have never made them you really should try them. They are so yummy. You can find the directions HERE if you are interested.
                    On Saturday we will be reading about the soldiers securing the tomb with a stone. We found some candy rocks in the bulk section at the grocery store. It really looks like little rocks. Who knows how it will taste though.
                    Sunday will be church and a big meal although I don't know what we are having yet. Probably ham, which somehow seems wrong, since Jesus wouldn't eat pork but that just seems like what we usually do.

How about you? What plans do you have for Easter?

Happy Valentine's Day

B#2 loves to make things nice for holidays and she was definitely busy for this holiday. I think she knew that mom wasn't quite up to all the planning so she did it for me.


She made these nice hearts with verses on them for everyone in the family(except baby) and bought candy and seeds to go with them.


DH bought me these beautiful peach roses.

And just to show you how different we are....I bought him this funny balloon. Normally he would be the funny one, of course maybe that is why I thought of him when I saw the balloon. The little ones sure love it.

For lunch after church, she planned heart shaped pancakes. They turned out very cute, but with a family of 10 dad thought that might be quite alot of cutting so she made a plateful for us and then we had regular pancakes. I knew the guys in the family would need some protein so we also had sausage and bacon, along with some muffins that dad brought home last night from Costco. Needless to say, we are all stuffed and ready for napping.

Reformation Party

One of the older girls reading about Martin Luther to the kids.

Our family has chosen not to celebrate Halloween and that decision was made even easier when B#5 was born on October 31st. Generally we celebrate his birthday that day. This year, however, dad had to work on his birthday so we decided to celebrate it earlier in the week so when we were invited by some good friends to a Reformation Party on the 31st we gladly accepted. The kids had a great time playing games like "Chucking Bibles into Germany", an Indulgence throw-away relay race, reading about Martin Luther and making crafts, bobbing for doughnuts(very messy), a hymn sing, lots of food and wonderful fellowship. All in all there were only 7 families but we had 35 children, lots of fun! B#4 took some pictures of it all so enjoy and happy belated Reformation Day.

B#6 bobbing for doughnuts. You thought there was water involved, didn't you?

Making cinnamon dough ornaments.

Coloring and still making ornaments.