Easter 2013

This year we were very intentional about making Easter more meaningful. The 40 days leading up to Resurrection Sunday, we dove deep into God's word. We spent time praying and meditating. We tried our best to love and help others.

  

Along with the gospels, I read 40 Days of Living the Jesus Creed by Scot McKnight , The Little Way of Lent: Meditations in the Spirit of Therese de Lisieux, and Passion by Mike McKinley. It was in Passion, that I read the exact thing that happened to me over these last 40 days. McKinley wrote, "As you meditate on Jesus' love and humility and all that He did for you, your love for Him will be stoked into a blaze that dwarfs anything else."

 During Holy Week (the week leading up to Resurrection Sunday), we did several things with the boys. Some of the activities were the same as years before. We made palm branches on Palm Sunday. We read The Parable of the Lily. We played in the Easter story sensory bin.

 

New this year, we modified this activity from Oh Amanda and 

read about Mary anointing Jesus during our nightly family time. 

We let Seth pick out a fragrance he thought was best from the spices we already had at home. 

He picked the orange extract and we rubbed it on the boys' feet.

 We also invited friends over and had a traditional Passover Seder. 

(Some things just seem too special to blog about right now, and this is one of them. 

Maybe we'll share more next year.)

 

On Good Friday, we made our traditional potato tomb.

  

We also put red dots on the boys' hand to help remind them that Jesus died for all of us.

 Then on Resurrection Sunday, our tomb looked like this when the boys woke up.

 Seth kept saying all day, that "the stone was rolled away. Jesus is alive!"

We are so very thankful that Jesus is alive!