Happy Easter!

Yesterday afternoon, Casey and Esther dyed Easter eggs, which is something she and I did last year as well. She was able to do much more herself this year, and especially enjoyed the "magic crayon" which allowed her to draw with a clear crayon on the eggs and then see the designs show up when they were dyed.

This morning we gave the kids small Easter baskets and then went to church to celebrate the REAL meaning of Easter. We had a beautiful service with wonderful singing, choir, and handbells. Then we headed to Casey's parents' house and had a delicious dinner.

One tool we've been using for the last few weeks to help Esther learn the story of Easter is the Resurrection Eggs. Each plastic egg contains an item to sybolize part of the passion week story. The items include a donkey, praying hands, a wine goblet, a crown of thorns, a stone, etc... Each night after dinner we would open a new egg and read the corresponding part of the story from the children's Bible. We would also review the previous eggs, so by the end of this week she was doing an excellent job of telling about most of the items. We were hoping she would share it with Casey's family for devotions after dinner, but she got a little shy on us. Maybe next year! It was a neat way for her to learn the story and have something concrete to remind her of it. Peter just liked playing with the little things in the eggs, but maybe next year he'll get it a little more too.