Holy Week & Easter, 2011

This was a neat year to celebrate Holy Week and Easter because both our boys were at an age where we really felt like they were grasping more and more of this time of year. I was surprised how well Austin took in the story of Jesus, the cross, and his resurrection. He's been practicing the passover at many lunches lately and tearing his bread up to pass around "like God" he says :)  I love to see the words of the Bible become knowledge in my boy's little minds. The last few years I have been able to tweak a daily Bible breakfast to finally be kid friendly and age appropriate for our boys. Each morning of Holy Week we read a different part of the story from Luke or Matthew. Then I have the boys do some sort of hands on activity to help them remember what we read about. Anything from building our Easter tree to breaking bread and having "wine" together to washing our feet to showing love to someone who may not feel God's love. Of course the teacher in me has them do some reading and writing project too :) Once I have read the story for the morning the kids must come up with a sentence to tell a part of it and fill in each day for the letter of the day (using Holy Week as beginning letters and sounds). The kids wake up looking forward to what is next and I enjoy surprising them each day. We end the week on Resurrection Sunday... make Resurrection Rolls, look for Easter eggs to celebrate new life found in Jesus, and enjoy family time after a great morning service at our church. This year we had a special breakfast with some new friends and attended church together...it was great! It was a really nice Easter week this year and I always look forward to this time to share our faith with our kids passing on traditions and God's word.

 Building the cross one morning...

 Resurrection rolls.... an EASY thing to do that tastes SO yummy too! Just use a tube of crescent rolls, melt some butter, mix sugar and cinnamon together, and have 8 big marshmallows. The marshmallow represents Jesus, dip him in the butter to represent the oils they used on his body after he died, roll him in the sugar mixture to represent the spices used on his body, and wrap the crescent roll around the marshmallow to represent the tomb. Bake them and when they are done... the kids will see the "tomb" is empty! He has risen!

 Staring the story of Jesus...

 Washing each others feet...

Our boys on Easter! One more to add for next year, yeah!

 McIntosh Cousins