Happy Easter from the Browns!!!

He is risen!!!!!  (Picture LadyBear in your mind saying, "He is risen, indeed!")  We hope that you have enjoyed this Easter weekend and that you know of the freedom, hope and joy that come from the death and resurrection of Christ!

After a wonderful service at church, we headed home.  The kids were good sports as we took our Easter pictures...

 Then it was time for our annual Easter egg hunt.  One of the favorite books we had in our Easter book basket (see our book list at the end of this post) this year was The Legend of the Easter Egg, so the kids enjoyed remembering why we were hunting for eggs this year, which was fun.

 A hunting we will go...

 Make sure you each pick up only the eggs with your initials on them!

Brother, you have one up there!

Got one!

 

That was fun!

Several other things we did this year to try and make Lent/Easter a special time were:
- placing a sticker on each day of Lent with this calendar from Catholic Icing

- adding an ornament to our Jesus Tree (similar to the Jesse Tree at Christmas, telling the story of Jesus' life with ornaments).  Admittedly, we got off track with this, but when we did do it, it went over well.

- adding a toothpick each day to a grapevine wreath.  Each toothpick symbolized our sin that Jesus took upon himself and made a crown of thorns.  This morning, I replaced our crown of thorns with a royal crown symbolizing Jesus is the King of Kings.  That went over really well :)

 And reading books from our Easter book basket.  We read from these selections every day, sometimes multiple times a day.  Here were the books we used :

The Legend of the Easter Egg by Lori Walburg
Petook by Caryll Houselander
The Story of Easter by Patricia A. Pingry
The Very First Easter by Paul L. Maier
The Week That Led to Easter- Arch Books by Joanne Larrison
The Very First Easter (The Beginner's Bible) by Mission City Press
The Legend of the Three Trees by Catherine McCafferty
The Parable of the Lily by Liz Curtis Higgs
God's Easter Promise (Only God Would Have Planned It That Way) by Todd Barsness
Easter Is For Me! by Christine Tangvald
The Story of Easter by Alice Joyce Davidson
Why Is There A Cross? by Kathleen Long Bostrom
Who Is Jesus? by Kathleen Long Bostrom

When it got to be 12 days before Easter, we also started Resurrection eggs before bed and reading Benjamin's Box to go along with the eggs. 

Hopefully with all of this, the kids are learning about the importance of Easter... 


I leave you with a song we sang in church this morning that describes how my heart feels today and always.  My life is radically different because of the miracle and power of what Christ did.  I hope this miracle is real to you this Easter...He is Risen!!!!!