But I woke up and GUESS WHAT?!? The Easter Bunny came!
The "Easter Bunny" was such a sweetie and got me a little stuffed animal and some "I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus" stickers! No candy for me since the "Easter Bunny" knows that I'm on a diet so that I can have his babies. :)
Anyway, after that we went to church. I love teaching the primary children especially our age group. They are so fixated on the hunting for Easter eggs and bunnies part of things that they miss out on the real reason for the holiday.
Aaron and I brought our 12 plastic eggs that had different objects that represented a part of the Easter story. The passed two years, the children loved it and this year was no different. I started off by telling the kids that we can't go back to Heavenly Father if we make ANY mistakes. And then I asked them if they ever make mistakes. They all said that they did. I told them that Brother Reinert and I did too! I asked them what we could do to go back to Heavenly Father since we have made mistakes. They didn't know. So I told them that Jesus did something really special so that we could go back to Heavenly Father. I asked them if they wanted to know what that was. They said that they did.
I brought a blanket so that we could sit on the floor (because this lesson involved a lot of talking and not a whole lot of chances to get off of chairs to wiggle) and they took turns getting to open an egg. We had 4 kids in the classroom so each kid got to open 3.
I also had a felt board story to fill in the gaps. I'm always feeling the spirit really strong when I give this lesson. I'm so thankful for my Savoir and I want the children to be able to feel that too. I didn't know if they were feeling the same Spirit in the room that I was.
We got to the last egg and our...most rambunctious boy got to open it. He opened it up and exclaimed, "What? This is empty?"
And I told him, "That is the most special egg of all. When they went back to the tomb to make sure that Jesus body was okay, guess what they found? It was empty just like that egg. Do you know what that means? He did it! Jesus died for our sins and was resurrected and that means that if we want, we can live with our Heavenly Father again, even if we have made mistakes."
Then I read this prepared statement from the manual. "That day Jesus' friends came to the tomb. They saw that the stone had been rolled away. There was an angel in the tomb. The angel said, "He is not here: for he is risen." Jesus died so that we can all live again after we die. We have Easter to remind everyone of the day Jesus arose from the dead."
As I was thinking, "I wonder if these kids are feeling this Spirit..." the boy who opened the last egg said, "THAT WAS AWESOOOOMMMMMMMMMME!"
It was a pretty great day at church.
When we went home, Aaron and I didn't have anything planned. Aaron asked me, "Remember last year when you hid those plastic eggs full of treats for the dogs? Do you want to do that again?"
Nothing screams, "WE CAN'T HAVE KIDS!" like doing an Easter egg hunt for your dogs. Except maybe dressing all of us up in themed Halloween costumes. But you know what? We have fun with our dogs so I decided that that was a great idea.
I went out and hid eggs for the dogs. Some places were easy.
And some were harder.
We decided to let the dogs outside but not to help them for a little bit and see if they caught on by themselves. The plastic eggs were filled with peanut butter and meat treats, so we figured that they would be interested at least by the smell.
Bambi, of course, figured it out a lot faster than Pippen. She walked around the yard and went over to the car to see what that random thing by the tire was and she loved what she found.
It took her a little bit of time to figure out how to open the eggs to get the treats but she wouldn't let me take it to open it for her. This is a picture of when she got the egg open.
I had to lead Pippen over to his first egg but he was REALLY excited when he found it. It was like the best day of his life!
When Bambi was done with her first egg, she ran to find another one. And was soon rewarded.
Pippen was having trouble trying to find another egg. He was too busy staring at his sister with hers to really look. I tried to lead him over to another egg....but as you can see from this picture...
His sister swooped in a grabbed it before he could get to it. So he stood there and watched her eat it....and probably cried a little inside.
Aaron took pity on our poor little puppy and helped him find another one...
Pippen doesn't really get what we are trying to tell him all of the time.
Finally he realized what we were trying to tell him. Guys...he is suppose to be a tracking animal. His breed was made to hunt and kill rats, mice, and other small rodents. He can't even find a peanut butter/bacon filled egg by himself.
But we love him anyway...
Bambi quickly found her 4th and final egg (I grew up in a family where it wasn't "find as many as you can" but rather, "Everyone gets the same amount so stop hunting and start helping after you have found 5 eggs").
It took Pippen awhile to catch up with her. Aaron helped him out with his last one too. Can you spot the egg in this picture?
Good job! You probably found it faster than Pippen.
When all was said and done, I think that the dogs loved it but...we didn't bother teaching them about the meaning of Easter...but at least they had fun.
It was a pretty good day for all of us. A day full of promises of wonderful things to come. Happy Easter!!
No comments:
Post a Comment