2 dozen eggs till easter

2 dozen eggs till easter.... one of my favorite celebrations. And of course we are getting the party started with an Easter Countdown.

i started a lot later than i wanted to this year but hopefully next year i will have my eggs in a row to start at the beginning of lent (40 days before easter) we will see....i am such a procrastinator.

Easter is one of our most exciting celebrations we have as we remember the history of the greatest sacrifice the world has ever known and the foundation of the freedom and life we now can have.

Since God tells us to teach our children about His great deeds we are remembering together the greatest act of love ever given to anyone anywhere.

Our Easter Countdown

What we are doing: Each day in the morning before they wake up i hid one special egg* for them to hunt for. When they wake up we find the egg and tell the short passage from the Bible before we start the day. i am reading the passages from my NLT bible because it is easier for the kids to understand and talking a little about what it means and the symbol. Then we hang it up some where around the house to remind us of what God did. Then we take the empty egg and put it in the basket.

We also have an ACTIVITY, ART PROJECT, and FOOD that help explain the passage we read that morning.

*special egg. Each egg has a paper ornament inside that has a symbol, a tile and Passage reference on it. Each Passage tell the history, purpose, and story of Easter. If you are interested in getting a PDF of my egg papers i can email it to you. :)

Preparations for the Celebration: Hang up a garland, clothes line, ribbon or yarn in their room or on another great display wall with clothes pins to hang all of their art projects. Have a basket out for them to see and place the empty eggs (mine is on my mantel). Print the paper and cut out the egg shape (i glued pretty paper on the back of mine). Hole punch and run string through then put them in the eggs.It helps to store them in empty egg cartons in number order.

Preparation days: Palm Sunday - with the kids cut branches and bring coats to lay down a path leading to your door. All day do not use that door or walk down that path. Talk again about the passage and about our Humble King. Passover Dinner (Thursday before) - alot of great resources out there for this one i will keep you updated on what we do,if you know of any good website send me a link :). Good Friday - Make a cross with the kids out of wood from your yard. Dig a hole and put it up in the front yard. Talk about what happened that day long ago.

EASTER DAY: On Easter we get up early in the morning, just like the Mary’s did. We go to the Sunrise service at our church. It has always been something Jonathan and i both enjoy... the quietness of the morning the dew on the ground the sun rising... helps us to imagine what it may have been like that morning long ago.

Sometime that morning we will have the kids hunt for the last egg and of course it will be empty just like the tomb was and we will read the rest of the passage (Matthew 28:1-5), which we have an ornament for.

Then the kids will hunt for the missing basket (which is something we always did as kids - thanks mom for the fun tradition). The great surprise is that instead of the empty eggs in the basket they will find sweet yummies and delights. Then we will talk about the sweet friendship we can now have with God because of Him showing us great love through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection!

Then we go to my grandmas house for the biggest Family Easter Party in Salem!

So you can tell why i am giddy...and doing my happy dance. The cool thing is as i was preparing all of this... someone showed up at my door with a bag full of eggs and Easter books to pass on to me... how cool is that?! insert happy dance here.

Isn't He marvelous!