Our Easter Week

A few years ago, I got really fed up with Easter bunnies and all that crap.  We found a great book at Seagull Book called Celebrating a Christ Centered Easter, by Janet and Joe Hales.  We enjoyed doing some of the activities in it a few years ago, but we were moving last year on Easter weekend, so we didn't do it (Wow, that means we've been here for a year now!).  So this year I was determined that we would try to make Easter more the big celebration it should be.  I had a crummy cold, so I didn't have the energy and patience to do as much as we liked, but we had a good time.  Each day we learned about what Christ did on that day during the last week of his mortal ministry, and did activities along with it.  Before I pat myself on the back too much, I have to admit that there were many times that I'm sure I was yelling, "now sit down, be quiet, and listen about Jesus."  Sometimes we just talked about it in the car on the way home from somewhere...  Maybe next year we'll do better. 

On Thursday we learned about the Passover and Last Supper, so we had a little Passover/Jerusalem meal.  On the wall is the start of our picture time-line.

So lamb was too expensive (the cheapest piece was $16, which is way too much for me to buy just for the kids to sample lamb!) but we did have unleaven bread, bitter herbs and grape juice.  The other stuff- olives, cheese, nuts, dried fruit, cucumbers, and lentils were things they suggested might have been eaten in Jerusalem in Christ's time.  It was so simple, but the kids loved it, and it led to some great questions and conversations.  Rob even ate my lentil soup (drowning it with lots of cheese).  I put a bunch in the freezer, hoping it will still be ok next Easter.

One of my favorite things we did was the Love One Another Wall.  We wrote nice notes to each other on posterboard on the wall.  I used candy as a bribe to get them to write.  It's amazing what power candy wields.  They filled up the board and another.  I just made a few rules: 1. What they wrote had to be unique- not the same for each person. 2. They had to write a note to a different person in the family each time, until they got through the family and could cycle through everyone again.  3. They had to be nice.  Nathan, who has always had a hard time expressing any kind of compliment to Sarah started out by writing to her, "I hope you like Kindergarten." I guess that from him, it's quite a compliment.  He got so he was writing to her, "I love you." and "thanks for playing with me."  So I guess we can count that as a success.  I love what Sarah wrote, as she sounded out words herself, like... "Mom, you or the beest" and "Mom, I wot you too bee mi mom mi whole life," and "Abby, you mack me laff."  I love it!  Not bad for a preschooler.

We still colored Easter Eggs.

Matthew was the coloring king.  He thought it was the coolest thing; he couldn't get enough of it.

We went to a local Easter Egg Hunt in windy 34 degree weather.  The kids were kind of wishing they hadn't begged so hard to go.

On Easter morning, we had Ressurection rolls.  I wrapped roll dough around a marshmellow, then rolled it in butter and and sugar and cinnamon.  When they cook, the marshmellow melts out, leaving the roll empty inside (like the tomb- get it?!).

Since Easter was also General Conference,  we also had our traditional Sunday-morning-conference roll-up pancake breakfast.  Why are all the best traditions associated with food?!

We had my sister Terri and brother Dan come up for Easter.  We love having them around!  I'm sure my kids made sure they didn't hear more than half of Conference.

What can you say to that face?!

My kids treat poor Dan like he's a jungle-gymn.

3rd Annual Easter Egg Roll

A few days after Easter, we had our 3rd annual Easter Egg Roll with my friend Jeannie.  We look forward to it all year.  Every day that we drive past the place we roll eggs, Matthew yells and points.  We played on the track while waiting for Jeannie.  Doesn't Abby look like she was just born to be on the track?!

We roll or throw our colored hard-boiled eggs down the hill.  They are supposed to race to see who can get the egg down fastest, but it ends up being a free-for-all.  Matthew loved to chase the eggs down, and carry up big arm loads.

Ben, Jeannie (about ready to pop in a few weeks!!!), and Sam.

Sweet little Ben just wanted to protect his eggs so they didn't get smooshed.

The hard part is picking up all the egg pieces when the eggs explode. We need more great traditions like this!

Abby must take after her Grandpa Z., who can't stand to see eggs go to waste. Eeeewwww.  

Hope you had a great Easter!

Celebrating a Life

What a sweet blessing it is to know that this isn't the end... the best is yet to come.  Having an eternal perspective gives us the luxury of celebrating a life, more than mourning a death.  We all feel a great sadness and a loss- a hole in our hearts that will always miss Grandpa.  Thankfully, we have great memories, great pictures to help keep those memories alive, and a knowledge that we will see him again.

Rob's dad's funeral was a fitting tribute to him.  We laughed, we cried, we mourned, we celebrated the life of a great man.  It was a good day- emotionally exhausting, but good.  The kids did great- much better than I expected.  The funeral felt a bit like a wrestling match with the youngest two, but at least they were quiet.  I didn't have to pass Abby off to my sister until near the very end.

Here are all the young grandkids drawing durning the viewing just before the funeral.

The good thing about funerals is, you get to see family that you don't normally get to see often.  We were lucky to have gotten to see my brother-in-law Walt twice this year!  Here he is with Rob's sister Charity.

Abby with her Great Grandma.  I'm sure it was a hard day for her.  You're not supposed to out-live your kids. 

Sena and Camryn

Our great friends (and old home teacher) Dennis and Gail.  They've always been there for Rob's family!

This may be my favorite picture from the day.  Matthew spent a lot of time just looking at the pictures of Grandpa.  He misses him.  Grandpa was always so good to play with the kids, and tease them.  They loved to climb on his lap.

Walt, Carston, Rob, Logan and Abby 

His body was layed to rest at the very top of the Salt Lake Cemetery.  It is so beautiful, with a gorgeous view overlooking the whole valley.

 

 

Rob dedicated the grave, but I didn't get to hear much of the prayer.  Matthew was sitting on the fake green grass stuff next to the casket and started bouncing.  Not only was it noisy, but made the casket shake.  So I grabbed him off and he started to squeal.  I had to hurry him away from everyone, thus missing most of the prayer.  I'm sure Rob did a great job, and I'm sad to have missed it.  Stinker Matthew!

 Somehow, the setting on my camera got switched to shutter-priority, leaving the shutter open longer than it should- leaving all my pictures washed out.  When I saw how they turned out when I loaded them on my computer, I just cried.  I took a lot of pictures too!  I tried, and my sister tried to enhance them, but it didn't work.  I'm just sick about it.  I hope someone else took pictures.  It was such a bright day, with such vibrant colors.  I'm posting some of my pictures anyway- they look a bit surreal, but then, the whole experience was surreal too.

 Each grandchild got to place a flower on the casket.  Here's Nathan.

and Sarah

Jerany and Camryn

Nathan

Sarah being goofy

While we hung out there, the grandkids starting playing guns in the cemetery, hiding behind head stones...  I don't know, maybe it's irreverent, or disrespectful, but I think Grandpa would have liked it.

I didn't much care for Matthew climbing on the headstones, but I had to take a picture first, before making him get down.

 Clint with the ducks from the flower arrangement.

Brandon, Steve and Logan

Brandon has a great group of friends that came to support him.  ...and what picture isn't better with Jerany in it?!

Walt with Carston and Kaleb

Back at the church, the Relief Society put on a great dinner for Rob's large family.  It was so nice!  Matthew has a mind of his own, and preffered to sit at a table all by himself and eat.

Shirley's family has been very supportive.  It was a hard day for her, but she held up really well.  Rob's sisters got to stay with her for a few days, then her sister Jana came to stay with her so she won't have to be alone.  They will be so good for each other!

Me and Sarah

After the dinner, we went to Grandma's house to hang out.  She has great neighbors that have been so good to them since they moved in 4 months ago.  I think she is going to stay here in Utah, instead of going back to their home in Oregon.  We are excited about that!  Since Shirley doen't have anything for the grandkids to play on yet, her neighbor invited all the kids to play in her yard.  They had a blast! 

Shirley and aunt Jan

Rob's birthday was the next day, so we had cake and ice cream with everyone.  I feel bad, but we didn't really do anything to celebrate on his birthday.  We were so exhausted.  We made it to church, then just layed around.  So... Happy Birthday lievert!

Now we're at the hard part, the life goes on part.  Though the world seemed to stop turning for us for a few weeks, it still went on for the rest of the world.  Now we have to jump back into that life, and adjust to life without a dad and a grandpa.  It stinks!  We think about him every day.  I'm sure Rob has had several times when he's wanted to call his dad with a question.  We will miss him every day, but I'm sure time will help the hurt.  We are thankful for the thoughs and prayers from our  sweet friends and family.  And we are most thankful for our Lord and Savior, and the great plan of happiness.