Best Easter Ever

This Easter was so great! It was unhurried, unchaotic, and more Christ-centered than any other Easter I can think of. We have a big family and we love having big holiday celebrations, but they are busy. This time, for some reason, things just worked out in such a way that everything was pretty low key. Brice got asked to speak in Sacrament meeting and his talk was great! I also loved that it gave us the opportunity to talk about the resurrection often for the week or two before that Sunday. It really helped to set the stage, I think. After church we came home and called around to see if Brice's brother or any of my family was going to come join us for the Resurrection egg hunt.

I like this tradition because I'm always looking for ways to bring more of Christ into the holidays that are ABOUT Him, but that are being overshadowed by marketing and consumption. This hunt is just 12 eggs and each has a scripture passage and a token from Christ's death and resurrection (a thorn, a small nail, a toothpick cross, a stone, etc.) and you read them in order so that it tells the story.

Brice's dad had been out for a visit and he was just about to head home, but we convinced him to stay for the hunt and the story and it ended up being just him and us.

Then we headed up to my parents' house where we had another egg hunt, this time with candy, but we'd decided to just do minimal candy and some eggs with money in them instead of candy. SO nice not to have just a crazy amount of candy and the absence of the sugar rush that goes with it! (Sorry the picture didn't rotate; you'll just have to turn your head this time--I'm not fixing it.)

I think that it really helped to keep the spirit of the holiday not to get all candied out. There's something about loads of candy that sends people (especially little kids) into a frenzy.

The egg hunt at my parents's house is always a favorite because the adults get to hunt too. It usually involves tree-climbing,

roof climbing, dismantling of various things in the yard, usually the fence, etc. These are two different trees that Raelin is in, by the way.

We all love it! This time, we also got to meet a pair of salamanders that were living in a sprinkler box.

How cool is this girl!!!

Usually this is a bring-your-friends-neighbors-and-acquaintences sort of thing because it's just so much fun, but this time it just worked out to be us, my parents, and my sister's family. It was nice to have a small group, even though the big group is also lots of fun. And the little boys were so cute, just kicking it in the grass and pokeing each other--their favorite pastime.

Oh, and this year we did something different for egg dying. I found this idea online and thought it looked like fun so we tried it! You just take the eggs (uncooked), wrap them in silk (ugly ties from the DI work GREAT!), then in a nylon, and boil them in water with 1/4 cup of vinegar for 15-20 min.

This is what we got! Not too shabby, eh?

Not all of them turned out, but the ones that did were so cool!

The other thing that I really liked this year was that the Easter story got told several times throughout the day which I thought was so great to keep the focus on Christ instead of bunnies and candy. Between Brice and the other speakers, the story was told in detail in Sacrament meeting, then I told it in the class I taught, then the egg hunt told it, then my mom told it after the egg hunt. It was a really great Easter and I hope that we can always do so well at remembering our Savior throughout that special day.