Easter 2014

This Easter was so great! We spent last Sunday with family. We read about the Resurrection in The Bible. Eggs were colored and hid. We cooked out in the park. I also took a lot of photos! There were smiles, laughter, and memories was made.  Such a blessed day!

More Photos are in the Members Area. Photos:[Our Family Easter Photos] [Mine and Justin's Easter Photos] [Part One of Three] [Part Two of Three] [Part Three of Three]

It's So Much More Than...

An Easter egg.  Yes, Easter is so much more than an Easter egg filled with all kinds of candy inside.
Entertaining the idea of the Easter Bunny.  Yes, it's so much more than that!
Easter baskets and the goodies they are filled with.  While the goodies that fill the Easter basket are often good, Easter is even more than that.
Easter is about the cross and the One who hung there.  It is about our opportunity for salvation.  It's about the greatest gift that we have ever been given, if we only choose to accept it.  As we celebrate Easter today, with all of the good things in our lives...family, food, Easter eggs filled with treats, baskets filled with goodies, and so on and so forth, let's just stop  for just a moment and reflect on what it's all about!  Easter is about Him, our Salvation, our Jesus.  Yes, Easter is about life eternal, if we will only choose it!
25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? -John 11:25-26 (KJV)
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” -John 11:25-26 (ESV)

Easter 2013

Easter was last month and I thought I should post up a photo of the eggs we colored:

Kids Spring Break 2012!

Well the kids had Spring break beginning Easter weekend and lasting through last week.  We had so much fun, from playing games to going to the park, to making Easter treats and celebrating Easter, it was great!!

I even surprised them by buying them these cupcakes that read Happy Easter on them, they loved them!

 

And...the kids made me these Easter cards, I love them!! :-)

Happy Easter!

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:  And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?

John 11:25-26

---

The above verse means SO much for us and it means so much for what this holiday stands for.  Easter-the day Jesus Christ rose from the grave and defeated death and gave us everlasting life (if we so choose it).  May we never forget what this holiday is all about..sure the celebration is fun (Easter egg hunts, get togethers, dinners, etc.), but may the meaning of what this day is to represent never lose significance and may it always be on my mind throughout the whole day.

I chose this verse to go on a lot of the gift/treat bag tags that I made up for kids this Easter.  I made around 61 bags and filled them with treats for my kids' class, friends, etc.  It was a cool project that the kids and I enjoyed doing together and the bags turned out great.

Now, today I am putting turkey and ham in to bake and fixing up what is left to fix of the food for dinner and its off to Church too, of course.  We plan to have quite a few people here today probably around 15-20 people and lots of food and a huge egg hunt with lots of eggs filled with lots of treats.  Its gonna be a good day!

Happy Easter and may we always remember that Jesus is the reason for this day's celebration!

Easter Treat Bags

Well, Easter is right upon us and its the kids last week of school before Spring Break so we decided to make some treat bags up for their class at school as well as for their Youth Group and friends, etc.

This was a really great project and not only did it teach the kids even more how it can be a nice thing to give to others, but it can be fun as well.  The kids was able to help make the bags...Troy hole punched the gift tags (which we printed out and each read "Happy Easter From: Breann and Troy" and some even had a Bible verse) and Breann helped with cutting the string to tie in the gift bags and she even helped shape the bags.

We ended up making 61 bags total for this Easter.  And...the bags are filled with all kinds of neat little goodies.  We have marshmallow candies, miniature chocolate bunnies, chocolate eggs, etc.  And...for Youth Group we even added religious pencils to theirs.

The way we made the gift bags was we took an envelope (yes, an envelope) and made the treat bags...and it is fairly simple to do once you get the hang of it.  I think there is all kinds of different ways to make these bags...you can use different size envelopes...some people may use ribbon or some other type of string, etc.  To do this project the way we did it was you just mainly:
1. Seal the envelope.
2. Cut off one end of the shorter ends of the envelope...that is one of the sides...not the top...where you sealed it and not the bottom (which is opposite of where you sealed it), but the spot you want to cut is either the left or right side (to make the bag's opening)...so that becomes the top of the bag.
3. Hole punch the bag at the top of the bag...to place your handle/string through.
4. So...now that you have the top of the bag (which has become the spot that you cut) you then make a crease on the left side, the right side, and the bottom...folding each of those sides in just a bit (maybe an inch or so).
5. Then fold each of those sides back the other way (this seems to kinda' help get the sunken look in the sides of the bag, etc.).
6. You then undo the creases by sticking your hand through the top of the bag and pushing down on what would now be the bottom part of the bag.  This will leave two corners on each side of the bottom of the bag.  Fold those corners in toward the center and tape them.  Shape your bag to make it look more like a bag and you have the bag made.
7. Print out or get some type of gift tags and I even used clothesline (believe it or not, yes, clothesline) for the string/handle on these bags...cut the strings and if you need to hole punch your gift tags do so at this time and insert the string through the gift tags and through the holes on the bags...first one string on one side and one string on the other side of the bag and you can either tie or tape (we taped ours).
8. You can then add your treats or a gift or whatever and then add your tissue gift paper to make them even more cute.

And...ta-da...your very own very crafty, very adorable homemade gift bag!!

My question to you...are you and/or your family doing any crafty projects for Easter this year?  If so...please do tell!!







{This Project is Also in the Members Area!}

Easter 2010

This Easter was nice. 

Let's start with the Saturday evening before Easter. It was AWESOME! We went out to eat at a local Mexican restaurant with my husband's sister and her family.  We then came home and colored eggs (see below...me and Justin's sister, Gina, helped our kids and Gina's son, Cameron make their eggs all colorful and pretty). Then we went to Communion at our Church. It was a very nice service.

Then Sunday morning...we went to Church and throughout the day I reflected on what Christ has done for me...what a joy Easter truly is!!  I also teach Children's Church and we even had an Easter lesson and party for the children which I think they loved as much as I did...uh-hum.  :)  Anyhow...after we got back home we met up with Justin's Sister, Gina and her husband John as well as their son Cameron and we all went to the ballpark and hid eggs.  It made for a very adventurous and interesting egg hunt!!

My husband took these pictures...and I think he did a fabulous job!! :)

Hunting the eggs:

Counting the Eggs:

The tally ended up being: Breann: 21 Troy: 12 Cameron: 9


Then the kids asked Gina if she wanted to race them around the bases...

Easter 2009...

Easter was busy, but fun. My husband and I kept busy with hiding 51 eggs for our kids (ten of which were real and we colored those the night before) and the other 41 were plastic and had things such as change or candy inside of them.

Plus, the kids got all kinds of candy and goodies in their Easter baskets!!

I also made a ham, turkey, broccoli casserole, corn, stuffing, and rolls. My parents came over for a visit and enjoyed watching the kids (and even giving them some hints to where they may find the eggs that their dad and I took so much time to hide lol).

It was a nice, relaxed, Easter.

More photos of this day are in the Members Area!

Easter 2008...

Wow! Easter 2008 already?!? Where has this year gone already?!?

Anywho...our Easter weekend was fabulous! It consisted of that Saturday being my niece Ashley's birthday party and we attended that then went to the bowling alley with my brother, his wife, and their kids...pics. of that to hopefully come soon (uh-hum...Bubby...I need those pics.!)...

Then Sunday we colored eggs, the kids got their baskets, we hid and found eggs (yes, the kids hid the eggs for me and Justin to find too LOL). Then I made a nice dinner (pork chops, mashed potatoes, pasta salad, corn, and rolls).

Pics. of the kids with their Easter basket stuff and of them finding the eggs coming up (below and in the Members Area)!