Easter

Christ is Risen, HE is Risen INDEED!

I am so thankful this season(well really all the time!) for a Savior who died for my sins once and for all.  For the nails that pierced his hands and feet, and all the love that He has shown for me.  He has extended me grace and mercy when I do not deserve it.  Oh LORD thank you for all that you have done for me, and I pray that you will continue to allow me to live out your love in my life.  Let me lay down my life for my family and those around me.  Allow me to be your vessel, and LORD allow me to teach what a GREAT LOVE you have for us to my children.  So that they will one day come to know you and your love as well!

Easter is such a wonderful season of remembrance of all that Christ has done for us, and although we still do little things that point us to the world and not to Christ.  I have tried in everything that we did this season to some how bring it all back to Christ, and why we really celebrate Easter!

This year I decided to have the kids make their own Easter baskets out of paper plates.  I love to do crafts, and my kiddos like to do them to.  They can sometimes turn chaotic when you have 4 people 4 and under trying to do crafts together, but they always make for a lot of fun, and a lot of conversations. While we colored our Easter baskets I told them the Easter story, and why we celebrate this time of year. (If you want to make these for yourselves next year, I just googled it! They were super easy to make, and were a lot of fun!)

Take a look, they turned out so cute, and they are small which is perfect because we don't usually give them a whole lot(we all know small children don't really need any sugar, or they won't be sleeping for the next 6 weeks, in turn meaning we won't be sleeping for the next 6 weeks!)<---OK maybe that is a slight exaggeration.

 We also dyed Easter Eggs(which they were told will be saved for Easter Morning!).  They did really good, at not making messes...I was really, really impressed with this "craft" time!  The egg kit that we got had these awesome glasses and mustaches to add to the eggs once they were dry, meaning they got double the fun, dye and stickers!

AND of course, we made cookies, what is a holiday if you can't make sugar cookies?! Here are a few of them, the kids had fun with every aspect in this process as well, make the dough <--eat the dough!, roll it out, cut it out, bake them, make frosting, frost them, and last but not least cover them in sprinkles.  I mean come on, how could this not make for an entire day of adventure and fun!  I love getting to spend quality time with my kids, and each thing we did together, I quizzed them on the Easter story, and then told it to them again.  Such wonderful memories made with my children, and such wonderful memories they now have about the Easter story.  I swear my children listen, and learn better if they are doing something with their hands in the process. (even if it doesn't have too much to do with what we are talking about!)

All ready for Easter morning!

We celebrated Easter morning, with our Easter baskets, a new Easter book, and veggie tale movie!  We then made surprise rolls(linking it to the tomb being empty), and ate those for breakfast with our eggs.  We enjoyed a wonderful time at church with friends.

Momma's girl!

"big" kids

 My beautiful babies!

And we came home to a big lunch!  Finishing off with the Easter story read just one more time from our Jesus Storybook Bible!

What did you do this Easter?  How did you show your children the love and sacrifice of Christ during this wonderful season?  I always love to hear new ideas!

Christmas is here!

Well at least in our home it is!

I love Christmas time. I love the meaning, and the God sent His son to this earth so that He might save us.  What a wonderful gift of life.  I hope that this season brings joy to every person.  I'm really looking forward to really teaching Elijah the meaning of Christmas this year and starting some of our own little family traditions.  Not sure what they all will be, but I will be sharing them as they come up!

We went last Friday and got our Christmas Tree. A REAL tree.  I don't/won't do fakes.  I love the smell of a fresh tree in the home and every year it gets to look a bit different.  I'm picky about the type of tree, it has to be huge, usually 8-10ft tall and nice and fat, so it takes up like half the room. OK not literally half the room, but in a small room it sometimes feels that way. We hit the jackpot this year.  Greg just keeps saying over and over, that is a big tree. He must forget we always have had a big tree.(he's getting old)

Elijah really enjoyed taking the tree home with us, and then he loved to help us put all the ornaments on.  He didn't really put too many on, he more just handed them all to daddy, and said thank you every time he gave one away to place on the tree.  What a sweet boy.  He also loved the pine cones, you know those wonderful cinnamon smelling ones.  He just wanted to keep holding them and smelling them, and then he would bring them around to us and put them in our face so we could smell them as well. 

Athaiah just watched and played a little with some of the garland.  When we lit up the tree her little girl eyes lit up too.  She loves to just sit and stare at it.  It is fun to see Christmas decorating through the eyes of a child.

After the children went to sleep, we decorated the rest of the house with little things here and there.


When Elijah woke up the next morning, he kept saying wow, and whoa every time he found something new or shinny in another spot.  I again love seeing Christmas through his eyes and just the wonder of it all.  And this is just the decorating part!

We still have to put lights on the outside of the house, maybe that will get done this weekend.  Who knows, we are kind of party poopers and have yet to put lights on the outside of our house.  We have had them since we moved it, just have never gotten around to putting them up!