Easter 2024

Happy Easter from the Peaden Family. I was so happy when we looked at the calendar and saw that Easter was the week before General Conference this year. I love both Easter AND General Conference, but when they fall on the same Sunday it's hard to give either of them the full attention they deserve. We usually do a full Holy Week celebration, walking through the life of Christ and his final week on earth. This year we didn't do as much as we normally do. There are several reasons, including some busy weeks, a stomach bug that hit, and grief-related inability. I did buy a massive amount of candy, as will be explained below. Even knowing that we hadn't done Holy Week the way we usually like, we made the push for Easter Saturday and Sunday and it ended up being a really nice weekend together with our family, celebrating and worshiping our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. 

On Saturday we delivered our traditional Easter Surprise Egg Hunts to several people in our neighborhood. Earlier in the week I had asked the kids to brainstorm who they might like to take the eggs to. We decided on: 

-A new mother/daughter family in our ward, Ilse & Nyah. Nyah is in David's primary class and we thought it would be a nice way to welcome them to their neighborhood. 

-The Lambson Family (Caleb's choice) 

-The Ward Family (Lydia & Austin Pick) 

We sat together in our family room and filled more eggs than we expected (remember that I bought a massive amount of candy?) so while we were out delivering, we spontaneously added: 

-Bishop Olsen and Family

-Amelia Perkins

-Maya and Ely Avrahami

 It’s one of my favorite traditions because I love incorporating the service aspect into our holiday celebrations. A few neat things from our experience this year include:

-the Avrahami's (our Jewish neighbors) seeing us taking eggs to the Wards and then happily agreeing when we asked if we could share the tradition with their kids. 

-the response from the Ilse saying that Easter had been hard for them that week and that Nyah was very excited about the eggs

-the text from Carli Lambson late Saturday night (after her initial thank you text) saying that it was a tender mercy for their family, even more than they thought, because when she was pulling out her Easter things for the next day she realized she hadn't bought enough supplies for an egg hunt but then her husband reminded her that they had already gotten to do an egg hunt that day. We told Caleb about this and talked about how he had been the one to receive guidance from the Spirit to choose them. (He insisted we go to the Lambsons even when we tried to talk him out of it for someone who "needed it more".) He was so proud and it was such a good opportunity for him to feel the joy that comes from being an instrument in the hands of the Lord. 

The tradition was made a little sweeter when our kids came out to a surprise egg hunt of their own on Saturday morning (compliments of the Kuck Family, our ministering brother's family). They loved getting surprised and were extra excited to deliver their egg hunts to others. 

We woke up Easter morning and ate German Puff Pancakes in lieu of our traditional sugar-cereal-in-Easter-egg hunt. I explained to the kids that I wanted to have an extra Christ-focused day and that after breakfast we would have a "Jesus Egg Hunt". Breakfast was delicious and the kids got to work hunting for all of the eggs they could find. 12 of them had papers with scriptures and small items from the last week of Christ's life and the rest were empty. We read through the scriptures and David shared a beautiful testimony of the Savior. Austin got a similar set of 12 eggs at his Primary Activities and he asked if he could share them as well, so we read through the similar scriptures that he had, too. 

I put on the Lamb of God musical performance DVD and we listened to it while we dyed Easter Eggs and prepared for church.  The block was only 1 hour today and was a beautiful musical Sacrament Meeting. 

I’ve been pretty emotional the past couple of weeks and my feelings have been pretty close to the surface. I just miss Sue deeply and am just really, really sad. There have been multiple times where I have had to leave group gatherings early before my emotions overflow (sobbing on the way home), crying in the church library with Sister Gail Ferrin as we talked about the death of loved ones, and sometimes feeling so overwhelmed by grief that I can't do much more than hold my hands to my chest while tears leak out. I am trying to balance letting myself feel my emotions while still trying to juggle all of the balls. I've been surprised at how that grief has impacted so many areas of my life that are just harder than usual. This Easter Sunday was a beautiful moment in that grieving process, a time to simply be filled with gratitude for the Atonement and Ressurection of Jesus Christ and what that means for me and our family. 

 I am holding close my faith and gratitude for a Savior who overcame pain, sickness, and death.

Caleb wrote this paper during Sacrament meeting today. Even though he was climbing all over and bouncing on the couch this morning during our family lesson, it is clear that he is internalizing the things that we are trying to teach him. He just recently started listening to the Book of Mormon each night before he goes to bed and is trying to finish the whole thing before he gets baptised and I have been so impressed with the impact it has had on him. He wrote:  

"I know God was resurrected for us. I believe Jesus really lived." 

Lydia sang a beautiful song with the YW group and Austin, Caleb, & Lucy performed with the Primary. 

After church we came home to open our Easter baskets. (There was some pointed connection making in the car about how the disciples must have felt while they were waiting after Christ was crucified and before he was resurrected, ha.) We usually do Easter Baskets on Saturday morning, but I had been sick. We ended up enjoying having them in the afternoon instead. 

This evening we went to Matt and Brooklyn's house in Orem for Easter Dinner: Ham, Potato Supreme, and lots of yummy sides. We all brought eggs and put together a giant easter egg hunt for the kids, which of course, they loved. We missed spending this Easter with the Peaden family, but were grateful to be with the Walkers. We are blessed to have such wonderful family here and for eternity. 

We came home and did one last Easter gathering. We read through a list of "Names of Christ" while lighting candles on a clay spiral the kids helped me make earlier and talked about what Christ does for us and who he is to our family. It was a beautiful way to close our day in worship and celebration of our Savior. 

Happy Easter! 

Easter 2023

This year, prior to Easter - our Primary Presidency visited all the children of the ward and brought a special gift to them, a small egg carton with six eggs and eight small discussion starts for the week leading up to Easter. It had little video clips and small items to walk the kids through Holy Week and discuss Jesus Christ and his life, death, and resurrection. It was such a sweet gift, made even more poignant, when at General Conference last week, Elder Gary E. Stevenson gave a conference address titled "The Greatest Easter Story Ever Told" and encouraged families to incorporate Christ-Centered traditions into their Easter Celebrations. 



A few things that he said, 

"The First Presidency letter was a wake-up call. Not only did they invite all of us to make sure our celebration of the most important event to ever happen on this earth—the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ—includes the reverence and respect the Lord deserves, but they also gave us more time with our families and friends on Easter Sunday to do so.

How do we model the teaching and celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Easter story, with the same balance, fulness, and rich religious tradition of the birth of Jesus Christ, the Christmas story?

It seems we are all trying. I observe a growing effort among Latter-day Saints toward a more Christ-centered Easter. This includes a greater and more thoughtful recognition of Palm Sunday and Good Friday as practiced by some of our Christian cousins. We might also adopt appropriate Christ-centered Easter traditions found in the cultures and practices of countries worldwide.

New Testament scholar N. T. Wright suggested: “We should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children’s games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts. … This is our greatest festival. Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have a Christianity.”

I loved hearing him say this, and feel like David and I have tried to do this throughout all of our married life. I remember sitting down with him many years ago, (Lydia was very, very small), and discussing what we wanted Easter to look like in our home. We both wanted the emphasis to be on the Savior and we had many ideas for how we could build traditions that incorporated faith, testimony, and family fun. I feel like we have accomplished that with the traditions we have created and I love being able to celebrate the Savior with my family through service (setting up egg hunts for others), family (finding ways to spend time with extended family and making an effort to set aside time for our little family, too), worship (walking through Holy Week, memorizing songs or quotes about Jesus, Sunday Church), and fun (Easter baskets, candy, egg hunts, etc..). This year we memorized the paragraph from the living Christ that says: 

"He rose from the grave to become the firstfruits of them that slept. As risen Lord, he visited among those he had loved in life. He also ministered among his other sheep in Ancient America. In the modern world, He and His Father appeared to the boy Joseph Smith, ushering in the long-promised dispensation of the fulness of times." 

We took each line and spend a few minutes discussing what it meant and reading about what it referenced in the scriptures. That in conjunction with the brief message from the Primary Presidency walking through Holy Week and I felt like the week leading up to Easter was really neat.  

Here are some other things that we did to celebrate this year:

Friday Family Dinner with the Walkers

We invited everyone for Easter Dinner, but Friday was the best day for everyone to come so we went with it. It was really special to me to be able to use my Grandma Knowles' china (that she got from Grandpa Brown when he was serving in the military in Korea during the Korean War. He was a driver and somehow found and purchased this china set and had it sent back to her). We ate delicious food and thoroughly enjoyed being together. 

Cousin Crew Easter Egg Hunt

*Reminder- next year host an adult Easter Egg Hunt where everyone brings 10-12 items (sodas, popcorn bags, erasable pens, bags of marshmallows, whatever they want), then you assign each of those items a number and put the numbers inside the eggs. Not all of the eggs will have numbers, but the more eggs you get the more likely you will get a prize. After you collect the eggs, turn in your paper numbers for your prize. I really want to do this next year. 



 

Sunday Morning Egg Hunt 

Eggs were hidden on the stairs and all over the house (this year we even went all the way to the basement). About half of the eggs had breakfast cereal in them to dump out and eat for breakfast. 

Pre-Church Family Photo

My poor fair-eyed family. I probably need to find a new place to make them take a picture so that all of our pictures aren't squinty. Or maybe we just need to move to a West Facing house so that I can have my morning porch picture without those poor eyes having to look directly into the sun. I love this family. 

Service Egg Hunt Setups 

This is one of my favorite traditions that we have created. I love bringing an element of service into the holiday. This year we chose two families and our kids helped hide easter eggs all around their yard. We gave them a little printout expressing our love for them, the reminder of Christ in our lives, and how many eggs they needed to find. The Rossels have been dear neighbors for years and recently Erin lost her brother. This Easter season has come at a hard but tender time for them and we were grateful we could show their family that we were thinking of them. The Reijentes family is a new family joining our homeschool coop who happens to live in our stake. We took eggs to them, met them, and the mom was really touched. The kids loved it, and said it was one of their favorite parts of the day and I love that for them. 

Dying Easter Eggs

Traditional family quality time (plus volcano eggs- really cool). Lydia requested to paint her egg and when she showed David and I both of our jaws dropped. We were speechless. A little portrait of the Savior. It was amazing. 



Easter Baskets

The kids got some candy, some new pool towels, squirt guns, and some miscellaneous items. They were happy and we were glad to have had such a successful Easter celebration. 

A note: David and I got to take a nap while the kids played outside for 1/2 hour. (win) I got up from my nap and put spray sunscreen on Lucy so she wouldn't get sunburned (win) Caleb found that sunscreen later and while playing with it accidentally sprayed it directly into his eyes (SUPER NOT WIN). We spent the next 1/2 hour+ rinsing his eyes in the sink and shower, then flushing them with a saline eye wash. He couldn't open his eyes at all and they were super red and puffy - but thankfully prayers and bodies do wonderful things and he was better by tonight. And we didn't have to take him to the hospital (win-win-win).