Our Easter

Easter was pretty good this year. Mom is a little worn out after trying my hardest to uphold as many traditions as I could possible manage on my own. After we had our first kids and I went completely over board, spending a lot of money and putting a lot of work into making it spectacular. I noticed my children were perfectly content shaking the plastic Easter eggs and hearing them rattle. So I decided then and there that I needed to scale it down and focus more on the true meaning of Easter. Yet still give the fun memories that I remembered as a child for my children. After some thought and consideration and coming across something I made in Relief Society I came up with a plan for the next Easter. So after trying it out and having success it of coarse was implemented into Warner tradition. So our tradition is as follows: We have a notebook (mom made) that is called "The week of the Atoning Sacrifice" We start the Sunday before Easter and read about each event that lead up to the Crucifixion of the Savior and his resurrection which of coarse lands us on Easter Sunday. We do one day at a time and the notebook is complete with illustrations for the kids. Starting with "Palm Sunday" including the "Last supper" and "The Garden of Gethsemane". So each night we read in our notebook until Christ is Resurrected on Easter. Saturday night we color a FEW eggs. And then the Easter bunny visits while we sleep. The big thing the Easter bunny brings us is new church clothes to wear so we can look extra special on a special Sunday. By then the kids understand why it is a special Sunday. They get a new toothbrush a few plastic eggs with candy in them (limited candy) and ONE small toy. It is simple and predictable. (easy to stick too for the future) The Easter bunny hides the colored real eggs we did the night before and the egg hunt takes place AFTER church. I have found that trying to keep it simple is really the way to go and all that is really necessary. Although carrying out the events on your own isn't easy no matter what you do. I must have been pretty occupied as I don't seem to have a picture of the baby!! He was in my arms as I was taking pictures of the others :( He had a cute haircut too! No matter how much you plan ahead and how hard you work there is always something right? (sigh)