Easter Means...

Well, I guess that depends on who you ask, but if you ask Jace he will say "Easter means Jesus was resurrected." Which just proves that sometimes they do listen and remember things during FHE. (It also helps if you say it about 100 times) I really wanted him to get some of the real meaning of Easter this year so we had a lesson on it and I tried to make sure he knew that it was more than bunnies, eggs, and candy. He got the basic gist of the story, I think, which is what counts. Braxton, however, didn't get any of the story I think, and if you ask him "Braxton, what does Easter mean?", he will say "bunny! " which is about as much as you can expect from a 1 1/2 year old, I guess. : )

We had a fun Easter weekend. On Saturday afternoon we went to Uncle Dennis and Aunt Maria's house for an Easter egg hunt for kids. The boys both had a lot of fun finding eggs (Jace was especially excited to find one with money in it...hmm, is he his father's son?) : ) and when the egg hunt was over they had just as much fun playing in their super-cool backyard; as seen below.

After we left I was trying to get Braxton to look at me and smile since I did not get one good picture of him at the egg hunt. He mostly tried to look the other way but Jace is always more than willing to be in any kind of picture or video.

But he finally gave in and let me get a pretty good picture of him. It helps that he was strapped down and couldn't get away. : ) This picture was taken on the way from the egg hunt to the mall to get some new Sunday clothes and some shoes. I knew better than to try and take them both by myself when I had to try things on both of them, and I was glad I waited until Tim could come. Jace was good but Brax wanted nothing more than to get lost in the crowds of people which he almost managed. He is not at the best age for the mall : )

When we got home we had a quick dinner and then it was time to color eggs! As you can see Braxton was not happy I had the camera back out and was asking for smiles. This cracks me up because it just shows the little 'tude he can get. I can just see him thinking "Mom, put that thing away...now!"

I remembered coloring eggs with Jace when he was Braxton's age, and how many of them got cracked and smashed, so I boiled 2 dozen this year so Brax would have his to smash and crack and Jace would have his to decorate. Sure enough, by the end about half of the eggs were smashed or cracked. Brax was not very gentle when putting them in or taking them out of the color cups. The one he is holding above he was just smashing on the table before he stopped for a second so I could get a picture.

He had fun though, and tried to decorate his eggs, so that is what matters : )

Jace, on the other hand, was very careful with his eggs and had lots of fun with the "magic" crayon...the clear one that you write with before you color the eggs and then it shows up after. If you look close at this egg you can see where he wrote his name. On the other side of the egg is a picture of his face he drew, it was really cute.

And the end result...our beautiful collection of Easter eggs. If you click on it to enlarge it you can probably pick which ones are Jace's and which are Braxton's. : )

Our tradition is that Saturday night we put all the Easter eggs in their baskets and leave them out for the Easter Bunny. The Easter Bunny comes and hides all the eggs in the baskets around the house and leaves candy and toys in the baskets in their place. They boys had a lot of fun with it, even though we have church at 9 am so they had to wait until after church to find their eggs and see what was in their baskets. This is Jace in at the beginning of the egg hunt around the house.

And here are all my boys at the end of the egg hunt...we were smart enough to count how many eggs the bunny was hiding so that we didn't accidentally miss one and leave it to rot and smell up the house. : )

These were the toys they got in their baskets...an Edward train and a James train. They love them and they join us at meal times and almost everywhere we go.

Now you might be laughing because of my insistence at the beginning of the post that I wanted Easter to be more than just bunnies, eggs and candy...and then every picture is of eggs or candy or treats. : ) It really was more than just those things, it is just hard to get great pictures of us talking about the true meaning of Easter. Jace was very concerned about why Jesus got so many "big owies" and then why the people put him in a "cave". It was a big relief to him when Jesus got out of the "cave" and was alive again. (We did tell him it was a tomb but he insisted it was a cave). I hope all of you had a great Easter!