Happy Easter!

Growing up, the Easter Bunny never came to our house. My Mom always said it was because she didn't believe in him. We were taught that we should think about Christ's Atonement and celebrate His resurrection, on Easter Sunday. As a kid, I didn't see the value in it...of course. What kid would want to pass up candy and presents to think about "church stuff"?

Jason grew up with the Easter Bunny. So when we were married and started having kids, the Easter Bunny finally found me and visited our family.

Each year, at Easter, I felt conflicted. I felt wrong. I felt that I was going against something deep inside me. Finally, I spoke to Jason about how I was feeling. He wasn't "on board" at first. He liked the Easter Bunny visiting. He liked the candy, egg hunts and fun around Eater time. I assured him I wasn't against candy, egg hunts and fun... just the Easter Bunny. As we talked and I continued to reassure him that I would still buy candy, take the kids to the egg hunts and still have FUN, he finally agreed to no Easter Bunny.

So how do you explain to your kids that the Easter Bunny isn't coming around any more??? (We had 3 kids by this time. Although Treyson was still very young.)

Answer: We made it THEIR idea...sort of. We gathered the kids for FHE. We talked about what Easter was REALLY about. We asked if Easter was about a bunny. No! Then should we tell the Easter Bunny to "hop on by"? Yes! Ok. (Some may call this "brain washing". I call it a good idea.)

Then we made a sign. It said, "Dear Easter Bunny, We choose to celebrate Christ on Easter. Please hop on by. Love, The Smullins" Then we taped it to our front door. --I guess it worked, because he hasn't been back since.

I've heard some verbal regret, in the past few years. "Why did we put that sign on the door? Now he'll NEVER come see us!"

Soon after the bunny tradition went away, I was referred a book, "A Christ-Centered Easter" by Janet and Joe Hales. This had some really cool ideas in it. We soon created a new Easter tradition... the passover dinner. We explained what the passover was and we ate a meal like Christ would have eaten in his day. This included sitting on the floor with blankets and pillows... an ancient picnic.

My kids LOVED the new tradition! They now look forward to it all year. One of the most favorite things they look forward to is the goat cheese. Who knew??????????

Olives, goat cheese, dried apricots, dates, figs, sunflower seeds, almonds, hard boiled eggs.
Pita bread (our version of unleavened bread), carrots, "bitter herbs", grapes, grape juice and tuna fish.
This year I also tried a new recipe, from the book, Lentil Soup. It had spices in it I had never used; marjoram and thyme.
Next, we did another of our Easter traditions... "Easter in an Egg". I'm sure you've seen or done this before. There are 11 eggs. In each one of them there is an object that represents a piece of the first Easter story. Example: sacrament cup (last supper), rope (Jesus was bound), 3 dimes (30 pieces of silver), a rock, etc. Of course the last egg is empty...because Jesus was risen. We read each scripture that goes with the object and discuss the story.
It's amazing. Each time we do this, I learn something new...or something I had forgotten.

I feel better about our most recent Easters. I feel we DO try to center our celebration more on Christ. Sorry Easter Bunny. Your out of a job (at our house) forever.

HAPPY EASTER!!!

Do-overs

Egg Hunt revisited...

Jason and Grandpa Waite hid the eggs in the back yard.

The kids hunted for them.

All, but one, was found.

We're STILL looking for that last elusive egg!

Where could it be???

Egg Hunt???

Although you can't tell from these pictures, today we went to our neighborhood's annual Easter Egg Hunt. (My camera was acting funny and didn't save the pictures of the actual hunt. Dang-it!)

There were a lot of kids there. I heard someone say that kids started lining up about 20 til. We got there about 1 1/2 minutes before they said Go! The event planner said that each child could get 7 eggs. Turns out none of my kids filled their quota, but hopefully they still had fun.

After the quick dash...I mean hunt, they provided Capri Sun juice and sugar cookies to frost.

After everyone had slurped down their juice and frosted their faces...I mean cookies, we headed home to check out what was in the eggs. Abree was delighted to find "Laffy Taffy". Taylee coveted Kyrick's chocolate. Treyson inhaled his before I could see what he got. Rylee traded her dinosaur tatoos (what we call "skin stickers") with Kyrick.

Modbe Give Away

Fabulessly Frugal is giving away a Modbe swimsuit. It increases my chances if I post this link to my blog. So here it is...

http://www.fabulesslyfrugal.com/2009/04/modbe-swimsuit-giveaway.html?showComment=1239426300000#c3395981082372403357

Check it out...or don't. I don't need the competition. :o)

Going GREEN...I hope.

Because of all the moving around, Jason and I have only planted 1 garden, in our married life. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.) That 1 garden was actually motivated by Jason's brother, who was living with us at the time. We didn't spend a lot of time weeding and tending and accidentally over-watered it. Everything turned out yucky and squishy. The corn looked deformed and fungi-like. Not appealing at all!
With the Larsen's getting ready to move, they offered us their garden box. We accepted and were assured that using the garden box and sprinkler system (designed by Ryan) that we would have an edible crop by harvest time. We were excited about the possibilities. ---By the way, this little garden box, built by Ryan, is awesome! It's off the ground (no leaning over and less weeds), it drains it's self and the PVC mist sprinklers have an automatic timer. So the garden is not over-watered. Thanks Ryan. We LOVE it!

So for FHE, on Monday, we went to Lowes and picked out several plant starters and a few seeds. Then we planted them the next day. It was an awesome sunny day...we haven't had another one like it since.



Taylee made some garden stakes to help us know where we planted the potatoes, carrots and cantaloupe.









Abree...




and Kyrick "helped" by jumping on the trampoline.













Treyson was very interested in the process and could hardly keep his hands out of the dirt.










Taylee was also very interested in planting. She liked helping to plant the sweet peas.










Rylee, tired from running in PE and track hung out a little, but mostly watched.








The "helpers"






The finished product or should I say the beginning of our GREEN adventure.






In all, we planted tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, romaine lettuce, spinach, strawberries, bell peppers, sweet peas and cantaloupe. We didn't follow the spacing guidelines very closely. We'll see if they are absolutely necessary. Wish us luck!

Zoo Boise

Last week was Spring Break. To do something officially "FUN", we went to the Boise Zoo with our friends, the Stokers.

The kids took turns on the giraffe slide.







Six little birdies in their nest.










Emylie proudly posing on the big lion.








Rylee and Blayke almost too cool to be pictured. (Izak must have been WAY too cool, because I missed taking his picture completely.)










Treyson giving the gorilla a big ape hug.











Jonas, so cute and so proud.











Kassidy and Taylee with the elephant.










Abree and Emylie hugging the seal.

The new African exhibit was really neat. I think the giraffes were everyone's favorite stop.

Because of the cool and breezy weather, we decided to take our picnic lunch to the Stoker's and eat it on their living room floor. After lunch, we hung out and played. It was a FUN afternoon.