Good Friday

I was talking to Ashley today about the fact that today was Good Friday and that I always thought it was sad that the day Jesus was crucified was called a good day.  She was quick to point out that is good (even great, awesome, and amazing) that He came to die for our sins!  She is ABSOLUTELY right! 

She had a lot of fun with the below Easter story hunt-print the puzzle, cut it into pieces, put each piece in a plastic Easter egg, and hide them.  When you've found all the eggs you can put the puzzle back together again.

http://www.imom.com/printable/easter-story-hunt/#.VvU3jtAemao

I hid the 15 eggs for her-it is more challenging to hide eggs when you have a dog constantly looking for things he might want to chew on/eat!  She found them pretty quickly and then of course, wanted to hide them for Scott and Ryan.  She hid them while I was doing something else and not paying attention to where she was putting the eggs!  When the boys came down, they found the first 11 quickly but were not real happy with her when she had to really work to remember where she had hidden the last 4 eggs.  We did find them all though!

This reminded me of when I was little and the only grandchild on one side of the family for a long time.  On the other side of the family, I was the only grandchild who lived in town. 

At my mom's parent's house we always hid eggs (real hard boiled, dyed ones) outside in the yard.  I LOVED getting to hide the eggs and make/ask the grown ups look for them.  Friends teased my grandfather about driving by and seeing him in his Sunday clothes and probably a hat, carrying around my Easter basket hunting eggs, but he did it anyway!  There were many times, especially when I was the one hiding, when we didn't find all the eggs.  I remember more than once someone backing over an egg hidden under a car tire when it was time to go home.  I also remember my grandfather sitting perfectly still when I had hidden an egg in the groove in the top of his hat and waiting patiently for someone to FIND that egg.  He was really good at sitting still-he would drink his coffee on the back steps of their house and had a squirrel who would come up and eat peanuts out of his pants pocket-this was the poor squirrel that I named Squeaky and according to my mom chased thousands of miles around the yard!

At my dad's mom's house next door, she wanted to hide candy eggs (that tasted gross) inside and the funny part about that was that just about anytime during the year when you opened a drawer at her house or had a pulling out (emptying everything from a closet to clean out or look for something) you were almost guaranteed to find a forgotten Easter egg!

I remember a story mom and dad told me from an Easter when they were children-the church building was old and had stained glass windows that tilted in-even up in the choir loft.  The choir was singing "Up from the Grave He Arose" since it was Easter.  They began slowly and somberly "Lo in the grave he lay, Jesus my Savior....." and when they reached the Up from the Grave He Arose part everyone stood and began singing loudly and joyfully-except the poor man who whacked his head on the stained glass window when he got up!

Another funny Easter story was one year a neighbor brought my grandmother a coconut cake for Easter that was supposed to be a lamb.  It was supposed to be sitting with its legs folded up under its body and looked fluffy with the icing covered in coconut and then green dyed coconut as grass for it to sit in and some jelly beans scattered around the base of the cake to add some color.  There was something a little off about the lamb's shape and my dad said that it looked more like an Easter dog-we enjoyed the cake and laughed for many years afterward about the Easter dog cake-maybe Max could be our Easter dog-I bet they had bunny ear headbands at the pet store!

Jelly beans-I am a little particular about my jelly beans-Jelly Belly's are not my favorite, but I love Starburst and Sweet Tart jelly beans.  They have only flavors/colors that I like. I had bought some other ones because Ashley's Sunday School class was doing an activity where you needed black jelly beans-it was sort of like a salvation bead bracelet only with jelly beans.  So you have to have black ones to represent sin and white to represent Jesus washing our sins away.  So I bought a couple of bags for her class to use and the extras got thrown into a bag of snack mix that I make with cereal, goldfish, raisins, and whatever else I am trying to clean out of the pantry.  Ashley came home from school twice this week telling me that she REALLY doesn't like black jelly beans!  I told her that I totally agree-they are gross!  I explained why I had bought them, told her she didn't have to eat any more of them and told her about my 4th grade teacher who LOVED black jelly beans and how I would always take mine to her after Easter each year!  Funny things you remember about teachers!

Enjoy a wonderful weekend and special Resurrection Day!