Holy Week Day 6

Today was a busy day. It always seems like the day before a holiday is a busy day. There are so many last minute preparations to be made and errands to run and chores to do. I am once again so thankful that we have spread out our celebrations over several days so that we are not left trying to fit everything in at the last minute. The kids spent the first part of the day at Granny and Papas house. But once they were home we did find time to dance and sing to this years Easter songs, read our daily Bible story and place Jesus in the tomb!

Close it tight, Jack.


After we sealed the tomb we got the kids their before bed glasses of milk and jonathan read us the crucifixion story from the Jesus storybook Bible.

Now everyone is asleep and we are ready for our big celebration day tomorrow!

Holy Week Day 5

Today we made our Easter Nativity!

Jack said he was making a rhinoceros not a tomb.


The finished product!





Then we at outside and cleaned up the yard and planted seeds in the back flower bed. Grace found the biggest worm I've ever seen... And I'm from Arkansas.


Then the kids had a slumber party at Granny and Papas and Jon and I got to go to the Secret Church Simulcast!

Holy Week Day 4

Maundy Thursday.

We celebrated this day by having a sort of Seder Dinner. We talked a lot about the last supper, Passover, the Exodus and also the new covenant.

The kids helped me make the unleavened bread. Recipe found Here .

Jack was ready to roll!

Grace was a good help as always.




The finished product! It was very very good.




Here is our dinner table all set and ready for us to eat. We used nice serving pieces and let the kids use our nice glasses to drink from. We even wore our Sunday best.




Here we are ready to partake.




We did not follow the complete Seder rituals. I really just wanted to make the history and Old Testament real for us and the kids. We passed out a bite of each food and explained the symbolism of it as we ate each item. After we had gone through everything we filled our plates and enjoyed the meal. It was (surprisingly to me) really really good!

My plate.




Grace and Jack were more than happy to partake in the 4 glasses of wine (grape juice). Everyone was gone, but g was still there finishing up the last drops.




This was such a fun and interesting activity. I'm not sure we will do it every year, but I will definitely try to do it periodically because it really did make the whole Passover and last supper (even though we don't really know what was eaten other than bread and wine) come to life.

Here is my menu and explanation of each food:

Maror- bitter herbs- symbolize the bitterness and harshness of slavery in Egypt. - we ate lettuce

Charoset- sweet brown mixture- symbolizes the mortar used by Jewish slaves to build the storehouses and pyramids. We ate a charoset recipe if found Here

Karpas- vegetable dipped into salt water- symbolizes the pain felt by the Hebrew slaves in Egypt and their tears (salt water). - we ate boiled new potatoes dipped in salt water

Z'roa- roasted meat (usually lamb?) - symbolizes the lamb that was offered at the temple in Jerusalem (we used this as an opportunity to talk about the old and new covenants). - we ate roast chicken

Beitzah- hard boiled egg- symbolizes the festival sacrifice offered in the temple as well as mourning - eggs were the first thing served to people after mourning. - we ate hard boiled eggs.

Unleavened bread - helps us remember that the Hebrews had no time to prepare before they left Egypt. - we ate unleavened bread

Wine- during a Seder four glasses of wine are drunk symbolizing the four fold promise of redemption. - we drank grape juice (we just can't get that baptist out of us I guess ;-)

Holy Week Day 3

On day 3 we hooked played some of our Easter music (thank you, Gettys for being so scripturally accurate!) and made our paper chain to decorate! On Easter morning we will tear up the chains because death has been conquered! Jesus is alive!

Grace was a GREAT helper this year.

Jack had fun and quickly turned his strips into a violin and bow...


And guitar.



The finished product...


After some serious dancing and singing to the music and lunch we set out on our Easter nativity hunt.



Ready to go on a beautiful spring day!


We looked in the yard and then had to head down the street.


After we found everything on the list we came back in for a snack of some blueberry muffins and milk.



It was a great day!

Holy Week Day 2

We woke up and had our special "begging of Holy Week" breakfast. Cross shaped pancakes!

Then we went began our Holy Week bible stories with the Triumphal Entry. I decided to read from the Bible even though it is over their head and just explain along the way. This has seemed to work very well. I want them to know where their children's bible stories come from and what they really sound like and that the Bible can easily be understood and isn't boring if you have someone to explain it to you. The short Holy Week stories seem to be good ones to share.

Then we went to ride horses at the Deans because it was Julianne's birthday!












So fun!!!

Holy Week Day 1

We drove from Birmingham to Shreveport (with no DVD player) and were very glad that Jack didn't throw up or poop on us the whole way home.

Then we piled out of the car and went to sleep.

Holy Week 2013

I am SO excited to celebrate Easter this year! Since we were traveling and Jack got sick last weekend and Monday, we got a bit of a late start this year with our celebrations. I was super thankful that I documented all of last years planning Here and documented each day afterward. It made planning for this year much easier. We are not doing everything exactly the same of course, but it still served as a good jumping off point as I thought about our celebrations.

And this year Grace totally knows about the Easter bunny and was totally into the bunny. It's kind of funny how I never even thought of the bunny as bad until I started to really celebrate Christ. The holiday is SO much more meaningful now that Christ is not competing with a fake furry friend and I'm not feeling torn about what I'm emphasizing. I've really tried to make just as big a deal out of Easter as Christmas, although this feels practically impossible. But it does make it easier to celebrate Christ when there are not mounds of presents to give to one another as the main focus of the event!

So stay tuned to see a day by day documentation of this years Holy Week and Easter celebration!

We're Goin' to the Zoo Zoo Zoo...

Another zoo trip in under a week? Yes, please! This afternoon we checked out the Birmingham Zoo and it was SO much fun!

It was much colder than Louisiana and I didn't pack appropriately so this is the attire we found for Jack. This kid is too cool for school.

Drumming in the new Africa exhibit.



Happy kid!



Elephants



The train!



Grace is a little noise sensitive. ;-)



All Aboard!



Ready for a ride.



At the primate house



Giraffe exhibit



There were 4 huge giraffes that you could feed! We arrived 5 minutes late for this activity.



Zebras



Lions. We saw 3 lion cubs that were almost 2 years old. We got to watch them train and everything. It was really neat.



Bobcat. GCSU throwback.



The double stroller.



A GREAT child sized sink. Jack washes his hands 4 times.



The farm exhibit is one of my favorites. Grace got to pet most of the animals.



Riding the tractor.



The dinosaurs (animatronics).



Playground fun.






And the most fun, the carousel.


We rode two times.






It was a good day at the Birmingham Zoo.