Easter Weekend - Passover and Good Friday

I love Easter weekend. It is always filled with so many good things (and I'm not talking about the chocolate overload and seemingly endless sweets). We work pretty hard to come up with and plan the best ways to spend the Easter weekend. Each year things have been tweaked a little bit more to find the balance that best suits our family and our situation for that particular year and how to best facilitate the kids' discovery of the real meaning behind the Easter season. We feel really good about how this year went.

For 30 days beforehand we counted down as we worked our way through The Living Christ. And during the week before we had a small little lesson and activity each night for that particular day in the last week of Christ's life. The things we taught were quite simple, but I am still amazed and how much the children grasp about Easter and I am so looking forward to building on that knowledge throughout the year and again next year.

On Thursday we held a small passover dinner. Last year we did the full seder plate. This year I felt concerned about doing the full Seder plate (as is traditionally done in the Jewish religion). My concern was that it is a very time-honoured and meaningful tradition in the Jewish faith and I was worried that my attempts could not possibly do it justice and that it would be disrespectful. So, at the last moment I made some tweaks and tried to simplify with a focus on the Savior, his atonement, and the sacrament (which, really, is a large portion of the Jewish Seder plate anyway).

We invited our friend, Mark, over for the dinner and everything went quite well.

The Passover Dinner acts, in a large part, as our official welcome of the Easter weekend. We talk about the last Supper, Jesus praying in Gethsemane, and the importance of what he was willing to do for us. We try to keep the night simple, focused and enjoyable.

On Friday we went for our Easter walk to look for symbolism of the Savior and signs of spring. It was quite strange to still need to bundle up to go out for our Easter walk (not exactly typical weather for the end of March). We also stopped by to wish our neighbours a Happy Easter as well.

I love this picture. While Atticus and I are working to give Milayla kisses, she is busy reaching for the chocolate bunnies that our neighbours had just gifted the children with.

 I was a little hesitant that we would see many signs of spring with how prolonged winter has been here this year but the kids did an incredible job catching every little flower bud, bug, colorful eggs or even chalk drawings of wishes for spring time.

And you know the winter here was abnormally long when people are trying to protect their trees from the elements...

 Between thorny bushes, new flowers, dead tree branches and a few other treasures we found plenty of opportunity to talk about the Saviour naturally. It was a great opportunity.

Then it was home to work on colouring our Pysanky eggs and our Easter Story book.

 The kids are so proud of their eggs and book. Both are on display in our home (even still) and I think its going to be a little while longer before the kids are ready for them to be put away with the rest of our Easter decorations. Just as well, I like the extra color that they give our monochromatic color scheme anyhow.

And with that, I must post about the rest of our Easter weekend another time as I need to wake some adorable children from nap :).