Perhaps Palm Sunday started out a bit irreverently as the kids tried to feed dad a "special cake" for breakfast (mayonnaise/butter icing topped with salted kiwis), proceeded to church with bandages wrapped on their appendages (how was I to know April Fool's officially ends at 12 noon in Australia?), and my extremely successful trick of mustard in their toothpaste tubes. But we ended with a nice re-enactment of Christ's triumphal entry, (complete with palm leaves and fights over the donkey rides, of course) and enjoyed a few of the church's new Bible story videos. Really well done, brief video clips - check them out to give a nice boost to your Easter week HERE.
Each year we use a special book I previously posted about to build our Easter Week celebrations. And while I didn't go full force with homemade oil lamps again, it has been a delightful week so far. Here are some things we've done and are planning:
Palm Sunday: read, discuss and act out Jesus's triumphal entry and start our Love One Another poster (nice notes to each other all week), pick Secret Pals to serve, and choose an Easter hymn to learn
Monday: discuss why Jesus cleansed the temple, how we can cleanse our "temples" and build our own (obviously much cooler with sugar cubes, but my brain shut off when I went to the store)
Tuesday: read and discuss a few parables then play parable charades
Wednesday: read, discuss & reenact the Parable of the 10 Virgins (make oil lamps)
Thursday: (always the kids' favorite) read and discuss the Last Supper, significance of the Sacrament, Judas' and Peter's betrayal/denial and how we sometimes do the same, and of course the Atonement. Then we discuss what Passover was and have our "Jerusalem dinner" with foods of Jesus's time: broiled fish (Mom's fave), goat cheese (Dad's), honeyed yogurt (Will's), honeycomb (Annie's), lentil soup (Kenna's), dates (Summer's), eggs, nuts, cheeses, olives, cucumbers, flatbread, raisins, figs, etc.
Of course, eating on the floor and the grape juice toast are always exciting. Such a nice, special way to get us all thinking of how things were when Jesus walked the earth.
Saturday: Discuss the Jewish Sabbath, and what happened in the Americas after Jesus' death then make Easter Breakfast Rolls for the morning (marshmallows in bread dough to signify the empty tomb)
Easter Sunday: Sing, testimonies, discuss Jesus' appearances, read Love One Another poster, etc.
And lest you think they miss out on all that traditional fun - not to
worry. Between the U.S. Embassy party, neighborhood party, 3 class
parties and the ward party, I think they got their fill of bunnies,
baskets and chocolate!(Despite Summer's "I'm not so sure about that giant bunny guy" she had no trouble getting into the egg-collecting...)
Incidentally, I'll end with an Australianism fun fact: easter "egg hunts" here consist of foil wrapped chocolate eggs (mini solid and larger hollow ones, too) tossed about the grass and gardens rather than colorful plastic ones stuffed with goodies.
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| Annie's Easter Hat Parade |
How fun Ivey! What great ideas. I might have steal some of them for next year for our family. Do you mind if I pin this post? I have to admit that I prefer the American Easter traditions with the plastic eggs. That is something I had/have to get to used to - how Americans go all out for holidays. It's fun but when you come from barely nothing to ALOT, it's a big change. I didn't even know that egg hunting is with the foiled chocolate eggs because we never did that, not once! We just bought it and ate it. Sad aye? lol. I'm glad you are making so many fun memories!
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