Holy Week, Easter Sunday, and the Week After

 I have taken as my official philosophy concerning religious holidays that I prefer for our family worship to be a consistent daily effort instead of a special effort around holidays.  I believe that I should have as much reverence for God on June 3rd and September 29th as on Christmas Day or Easter Sunday.

So, I let the holidays be about presents and baskets, with a nod to the history of the holiday, and put a lot of effort into our daily Morning Meetings and other family worship habits.

But in General Conference a couple of Sundays ago, there were several suggestions to really celebrate Holy Week. 

I had been planning to ignore it (mostly), and just keep putting one foot in front of the other in our usual daily worship.

But . . . there was this counsel from church leaders that I believe are inspired by God.

So, I got to work trying to plan and implement a special week.

It ended up being all about eggs . . . which sounds like a secular Easter celebration . . . but it wasn't.

Holy Week

We started with a brainstorm/discussion about all the ways eggs are a good symbol for Easter as a holy-day.  We got a really good list on the whiteboard, and the kids shared a lot of good thoughts about the symbolism involved.

I prepared Morning Meetings that were completely Easter-focused with special songs, readings about Holy Week from one of our children's Bibles, videos about Holy Week, and scriptures for memorization/pondering that taught the doctrines of salvation and resurrection.

And the egg activities began.

A sensory bin with rainbow rice, wheat berries (because there wasn't enough rainbow rice), plastic Easter eggs, and various spoons/cups.

We painted cardstock Easter eggs that were going to be hung up as decorations but ended up sitting in a pile (that is still on the kitchen table) because I never gave anyone the assignment of punching holes in them and stringing them.

The babies did one big egg each.

My kids did several smaller eggs each.

I never took pictures of the other eggs my kids made.  But at least I captured this one by Lola.

The sun came out, and temperatures came up, and our walks were glorious.

A fire engine!  The babies were ecstatic (even if they don't look that way in the photo)!

We hardboiled eggs for dyeing.

Oh!  And one of our snacktime readings serendipitously turned out to be Peter Rabbit.  For fun, we ate bread and milk and blackberries for lunch one day.

We went to the store to buy ingredients for natural dyes, and the kids formed a sort of conga line as they followed me through the aisles.  (Baymax was not willing to lower himself to that sort of fun.)

Baymax was, however, willing to help wash dishes so we could make the dyes.

It took several hours to make 6 different colors, and we left them to cool while we played outside in the hot sun! 

The kids carted 3 wading pools up to the deck, and I allowed them to put about 3 inches of water in each one.  Then we added the plastic eggs and some water beads.

Shortly before dinner, the kids put the eggs in the cooled dye, and we left them overnight.

The next day, we took the eggs out.  

Every dye was gorgeous . . . except for green.  We cooked so much spinach and parsley!  But it was to no avail.  The dye was a watery yellow-green that barely tinged the eggs with the palest hit of color.

After admiring the colors for a few hours, we peeled and ate the eggs for lunch.

The beet dye colored even the whites of the eggs.  And the onion skin dye soaked into some cracks in the shells, making lovely orange patterns on the egg whites.

After we ate and let the shells dry, we crushed them and made mosaics. (I think the next day)

Lola's picture of falling autumn leaves on a sunny afternoon

Brother's scene of great frustration because he hated this project, and, quite honestly, I interfered with 

it too much, taking what joy there might have been out of the process.

Mister Man's blowing wind and debris

Beowulf's desert with pools of water

Baymax's sunset

Ladybug's horse in a meadow full of flowers

I dyed some extra eggshells that I'd dried earlier in the week and set them out for the babies to smash up after naps one afternoon.

Their colors are a little more pastel and Easter-y because I didn't let them sit in the dye as long as the whole eggs.

Another afternoon, I set out some paper Easter grass and plastic eggs for another baby sensory experience.

My kids were at a show (we were short a few babies that day, so they didn't dance in this show), and when they got home, they wanted to play in it, too!

I purchased this beautiful book:

Then we all went outside to collect rocks and make our own pictures about Jesus Christ.

 Mary and Jesus at the garden tomb with angels by Lola

Mary and Jesus at the garden tomb by Little Princess

No one will claim this picture of Jesus coming out of the tomb.

 This is the man with friends who lowered him through the roof to get to Jesus by Ladybug

Jesus on the cross by Beowulf

Portrait of Jesus by Beowulf

Jesus praying in Gethsemane by Brother

Jesus entering Jerusalem in triumph on the donkey by Brother

Jesus' hand with a nail hole by Beowulf

Jesus standing by a heart with both good and bad people in it to show that we should love everyone
by Mister Man  (Sugar Bear kind of messed up the faces)

Baymax would not participate in this activity because he didn't like the parameters I set--finding some rocks in the yard to expand the collection of purchased river rocks I already had and making the picture outside.

It was not a good school day for Baymax.

During the week we also read from our little Clara Dillingham Pierson nature reader, and My Book House volume 2 as usual.  We also completed Junket and started The Blue Cat of Castletown during our evening reading.

For afternoon readings, we read from Illustrated Stories from the Book of Mormon volume 14, which tells of the Savior's visit to the Americas (as counseled by Elder Stevenson in General Conference), as well as from Bible Stories volume 9 by Arthur S Maxwell, which tells of Holy Week.

Then we got to Saturday, during which my plans for a simple and lovely Passover meal were destroyed by the amount of time and energy I had to spend running errands.  

It was just as well because the older girls were invited to spend the evening with friends, and they needed that carefree time away after babysitting for me all day while I was out.

Easter Sunday

I arranged with the Easter Bunny to have all of the baskets and eggs delivered to my bedroom so that we could head out for church first and then come home for treats and treasures.

The kids changed their clothes and hid upstairs while Sir Walter Scott and I put everything out.

I didn't take many pictures . . .

Nature Angel, Little Princess, and Ladybug all got new dresses.

At first Brother and Baymax didn't understand their gifts, but when I opened them and showed them that they were geometric stencil sets with rulers and protractors, they were thrilled.

Mister Man got another volume of illustrated Harry Potter books, and I took a picture of him in his t-shirt because it's just fun.

Baymax was super excited to get a Pokemon t-shirt and deck of cards, and Lola was happy with new butterfly pajamas.

Once all of that fun was over, we headed up north to my sister's house for dinner and an outdoor egg hunt in their backyard.

Grandma told all of the kids to pay their egg tax to her, and every single child reported to her and shared with smiles.

My favorite part of the evening was when all of the teenagers got on the trampoline and laughed until they cried.  All of their jumping and flipping and giggling and falling down laughing made my heart light.

We headed home as the sun began to set, quite happy with our Easter celebration.

The Week After

This week was all about dance.

Our final show was on Saturday, and we had about 13 new numbers to prepare in too short a time along with costumes to design and sew.

Yes, we still walked every day.

The younger 6 all got new playsilks in their Easter baskets, and they wore them almost constantly for several days.

Yes, I did history with the teens.

Yes, I still read aloud to everyone.

We finished this:

The best part was finding out that all of the characters, places, and general events were real.  We looked up the embroidered rug!

We started this:

Super delightful fact:  This one is also based on real people and dogs!

I even introduced Life of Fred Apples for Kid School.  I read aloud and draw/write the problems on the board for the kids to complete on their own half sheets of paper.  Of course, Apples is 90% too easy for the kids, but the simplicity is building up lots of confidence, and their incredulity about Fred's life is hysterical for me to witness.

I got to see Lola use her "pusher."

Brother made it to be a steering wheel for a car he was building, but Lola uses it to hold fresh grass and plants up against the chicken wire so the chickens can peck away while Lola's fingers stay safe!

Every day we danced.

Every day we sewed.

We did a few other things like psych appointments for Brother and Baymax during which their meds were slightly adjusted.

Mister Man and Brother had an apprentice gardening session.

The kids got to fry eggs again.

Belle teaches the kids about Elvis and his music as much as she can.

Lola wearing a plant pot on her puff

But the week was really about dancing and sewing.

Saturday was extra stressful with teens melting down over not being prepared enough.  I finished the baby bumblebee costumes at 10 am, and I came home with the completed Money, Money, Money costumes at noon.

The show was at 3:00 pm with a call time of 2:00 pm.

Somehow we did it all.

The show was super fun.  

I didn't take a single picture because I was corralling babies the whole time.

Oh!  The babies were such a hit!

Nature Angel said she forgot Immortals (the clogging duet she and Little Princess choreographed and performed) right in the middle of the dance, but no one else noticed, and one mom said that for a moment she thought Nature Angel and Little Princess were going to get a standing ovation.

Lots of clapping, lots of laughter, lots of fun . . . and now our dance season is done.

Next season begins in August.