This Easter was the best I have ever had since I was a kid. Carter is now old enough to understand what it is all about which made me realize how important it was for me to teach him about it. A good friend of ours gave me a bag of Resurrection Eggs which was absolutely perfect for Carter. A few of the points were lost on him, but because there was a "surprise" in every egg he sat and listened to me explain what each egg was all about and read the short verse in the scriptures that coincided with them before he opened each egg and discovered what was inside. And since you do one egg each day, we didn't have to worry about his short attention span at all.
I explained to him in terms he could understand that the man he loves so much was betrayed by his friend and that no one believed that he was our Savior and they didn't understand what they were doing at the time, but they nailed his hands and his feet to the cross. And that was how he died. Carter was so sad. He flinched when I told him about them whipping him and putting a crown of thorns on his head. He didn't want me to talk about the nails in his hands because it made him too sad. He kept asking me why his friends would do that to him? He didn't quite understand that not everyone was friends with Jesus- I mean, who wouldn't want to be friends with someone so wonderful right? And since we talked about the death of Jesus, Carter has become more aware of the concept of it all.
Just today he told me he didn't want me to die and leave him, even if he was old old old and had his own kids. He wanted me to be with him forever. What a teaching experience! I once again sat him down and told him that nothing on this earth is forever, that we all need to die at some point. I asked him where we go when we die and he told me "to live with heavenly father and Jesus... but mom, I don't want you to go without me!" Haha, I love my boy. He knows that heaven is sooo much "cooler" than this place but that we all have our time to go there and its all part of Heavenly Father's plan for us.
Anyway, to get back to Easter- Carter did not like the part about Jesus dying at all. But once I got to the part about them putting him in the tomb (or as Carter calls it, the cave- like batman's cave! haha), and the guards placing a BIG stone over the door so that no one could come and take Jesus he was all ears. I explained that an angel of God came and rolled the stone away while the guards were sleeping, and Jesus was alive again! He was resurrected and now lives with Heavenly Father. He LOVED that part. He got all giddy and excited that Jesus was alive again. I mean, Jesus is like the biggest superhero to Carter and that just reaffirmed how amazing he is to Carter. Nothing can stop Jesus! hahaha, that is totally how Carter feels about him. That was my favorite part of all of Easter this year.
Saturday before Easter Sunday we made our favorite fattening and sugary breakfast of waffles with real whipped cream and sausage. The waffles are Kalebs pride and joy because he has tweaked them to perfection. I colored all of the waffles and the whipped cream different bright colors just to make Carter smile (since we forgot to do it for St. Patricks day and kaleb and I were so disappointed). Carter of course loved it! Carter shoved every last bite in his mouth, along with Kaleb and me :)
Our colorful creation
YUM!
Plate licking good!
Don't mind my crazy "I just woke up" hair and my old makeup I never washed off! :)
That afternoon we made resurrection rolls. I have never made these before but I thought it would be yet another fun thing to do with Carter to help him understand the real meaning behind Easter. I was wrong. He did not really want to help at all and the rolls ended up not turning out because the fell apart in the oven. Oh well, I tried!
About to start "helping" me
Showing me what "he" did. Haha
Sure, they fell apart and didn't work out how I wanted, but they sure tasted YUMMY!
After that came dying the Easter eggs! I am still not sure why we did this since Kaleb hates eggs and Carter apparently does not like them either. We only made 10 hard boiled eggs, but that was 10 too many! But it was fun for carter to color and dye his own eggs. Kaleb and I also had fun even though we discovered we are terrible at making them look even half way decent. But we tried super hard and had only 2 or 3 that turned out looking pretty good.
Mine are the top 3, Kalebs the middle 3 and the bottom left one, Carter are the bottom 3... Can you see the cracked egg? Good thing these were hard boiled!
Mine and Kalebs
I tried to block out the bad looking cracked egg. Who am I kidding? We accidentally cracked like 4 of them! :)
We have church first thing Sunday mornings so it worked out well to have the rest of the day to do Easter stuff. We came home from church and Carter started giggling when he saw all the "hidden" eggs. He had to look for his basket that the Easter Bunny hid and then he was off! He found all the eggs in record time. He had a little help from some of his friends :)
Found his Easter Basket!
Already found two eggs!
Look mom, an egg!
My best looking egg. It sure looked cool, even though it was an accident ;)
Found daddies sparkly green egg! This was my favorite of them all.
Getting a little help from some friends
Carter's Buddy Doll wanted in on the Easter hunt too
Daddies other awesome egg
Look at that haul!
This was our first Holiday EVER since we have been married that we wouldn't be with either my family or Kaleb's. I was looking forward to it just because I wanted to try my hand at making a big dinner since I never have. I didn't make anything too fancy, but everything turned out sooo yummy! We made deviled eggs (which only I ate), rolls, carrots, harvard beets, roasted rosemary and thyme potatoes, a yummy ham with a yummy citrus peach ham glaze (which turned out oh so scrumptious!), and to drink we had some Pineapple-Apricot Punch that I found here. We didn't make very much since it was only the 4 of us, and Mila can't eat food yet. But it ended up being perfect for us. Oh and did I mention that I made my very first cheesecake and it turned out AMAZING? I am not a huge fan of cheesecake, but Kaleb is so I decided to make one just for him. It was White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake and it made me a believer. I thought it would be so much harder than it was. I even bought vanilla ice cream just in case we needed a little extra something to swallow it down with, but it didn't need anything at all. It shined all by itself. Go me!!
My super yummy cheesecake!
Our spread! Looks dinky compared to what we are used to seeing with our huge extended family holiday meals, but we sure were proud of it!
My dark blue egg was cracked when I started dying it, and this is how it looked once we were done and peeled it. CRAZY!
It almost looks like it has veins! Ugh!
Overall we had such a great time. We sure missed being with family, but it is nice creating new memories of your own. I am so glad Carter is learning all about the true meanings of these sacred Holidays. He is growing into such an amazing, unique and special boy. He makes us laugh sooo hard and brings such joy into our lives. We can't imagine life without both of our precious kids. We felt so blessed this Holiday and look forward to many many more with our family in the future!
My two Easter cuties. Sorry, I took Mila out of her dress right away without even thinking about pictures! Doh!
Can't help but love that big smile and that adorable double chin!
1 comment:
I love to read your posts. It makes me feel like I am close by and could give you all a big hug and kiss. You made a lovely easter for your family sweetheart. Great memories for all.
Love you, mom
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