Easter!!

 Easter was wonderful!! It is crazy for me think that at Easter last year, we had a brand new little baby join our family.  Now, here we are one year later...with a toddler, in a new state, and nearly ready to move again! Life moves way too fast for me sometimes. Anyway, Easter was just wonderful this year! It was lovely to be able to watch Conference with our traditional Conference breakfast before we began the Easter festivities. I can't think of a better way to spend Easter, than to listen to our Prophet and apostles speak and to be reminded on Christ :)

Long before Conference began, the kids were up bright and early, excited for their Easter baskets!! Jane's basket was filled with My Little Pony items...she was beyond thrilled!

 Beckham's basket was filled with several things that he loves... bubbles, silly string, balloons, markers and this cute little froggy!!

 After we ate a delicious breakfast of eggs, crumb cake, cantaloupe and orange smoothy and watched conference...the Easter bunny paid our house a visit. The kids were so excited to hunt for Easter eggs!!

 The kids did this cute Easter craft that was in their baskets :)

 Elsie just did her usual thing :) But,the day was made so much more pleasant because this darling little lady was toddling around, getting into everything and making mischief!!

 We ended the day by, of course, having a delicious Easter dinner!!

 This year we started a new tradition!! In order to really focus on Christ and the resurrection this Easter, we did a week of family home evenings that focused on the last week of the Savior's life. We started with palm Sunday where we talked about the day Jesus came to Jerusalem.

 Next was "mad Monday" where we talked about when Jesus sent away the money changers from the temple. The kids each drew pictures of the temple!! Next was"teaching Tuesday" where we talked about some of the lessons and parables Jesus taught the people. Jane and Beckham each got to pick a parable and teach it to the family. Jane did the widow's mite...

 and Beckham and I did the 10 virgins.

 I don't have pictures of the rest of the days but put up reminders of each of the days on our mantle as we went along. We did "Spy Wednesday" where Judas makes a deal to reveal Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, "passover Thursday" where we talked about the passover dinner and the first sacrament, "Good Friday" where Jesus suffered and died, "Spirit world Saturday" where Jesus went to the spirit world and then of course there was Easter where we talked about Jesus being resurrected.

Our week of remembering the savior was a huge success!! I was so impressed with how interested Jane and Beckham were in learning about the last days of Christ's life and with how they remembered what each day was called!! We sure had a lot of fun this Easter combining old traditions with some great new ones!!