Easter-y Preparations.

This year I am hosting Easter. Why? Because I excel at biting off more than I can chew. That's why.

But, really, of all of the holidays, Easter is an easy one to host. No bazillion gifts for everyone. No fireworks. No turkey that requires roasting or potatoes that require mashing. I can handle this gig. I think.

So, to prepare for our guests, the kids and I have done a few Easter-y things around the house. Firstly, I decided to spring-ify our entryway.

Yes, I am the old lady who puts silk flowers in her planters. I tend to kill living plants, so until I get the hang of ... what's it called? Watering? I will continue to use fake plants in almost all of my outdoor decorating. If you start seeing plastic pink flamingos springing up all over my yard, then you'll know I've officially lost it. Until then ... I just toe the line.

I love my green berry wreath. Please note that its berries are bordering on a dullish grey from sun-bleaching. I bought this wreath from Pier 1 two years ago and I just can't seem to bring myself to replace it. So, instead, I embellished it with (fake) flowers and the letter "B", which is the first letter of my last name. It is also the first letter in the word "Bazinga" from my favorite show "Big Bang Theory". Obviously, "B" has a prominent place in my heart.

While perusing the dollar aisle at Target, I found some metallic eggs and the kids had a fun time decorating our "Easter Tree", which has no purposeful significance, except that it was just something fun for the kids to do. The twisted hibiscus was pulled out of hiding once again and the kids love to see their handiwork.

While Pinteresting some Easter ideas, I came across the idea of cutting the kids' Easter lunch into bits and putting it in plastic eggs for them to open during their meal. For example, one egg could have part of a sandwich, one egg could have a few grapes, one egg could have some pretzels ... you get the idea. This is genius because it means the kids will be occupied for at least five minutes opening each egg, giving their parents time to take maybe five whole bites of their meal instead of the usual two. Score! I decided it would be fun for the kids to paint the crates where we will put their Easter Lunch Eggs, and of course they had a blast doing it.

Speaking of Easter eggs, my Mom and I were commiserating over what to put in the kids' plastic eggs this year for their Easter egg hunt. I'm not a huge fan of tons of candy, plus, much like Christmas, I want to keep the gifts to a reasonable limit, since this holiday celebrates something much greater. We thought maybe something like fruit snacks or graham crackers .... and then Voila! The idea hit us:

Why not fill their eggs with fun Annie's food? Fruit snacks, cinnamon bunnies, chocolate bunnies ... all delicious and not too horribly bad for them. And shoot, it's BUNNIES! After all, we aren't total bunny haters when it comes to Easter. This is fun without being, you know, grotesquely indulgent.

And, for us, we celebrate Easter because we celebrate the resurrection of Christ. I think the eggs and, yes, even the bunny, are harmless and fine, but we still want to make sure we do our part to rein it in and teach our kids why this holiday really is a reason to throw a party! I plan on stringing up some spring garland and flowers the night before, so the kids will see it when they wake up--a very easy visual of the LIFE that we have in Christ. And one of our projects this week focused on that, too. Taking a cue from the sun we did in their bathroom, I taped a cross with some masking tape on a canvas and the kids did a lovely job painting all over it. I then removed the tape once it dried and the kids loved the finished product!

(The blue swirls are courtesy of Caleb. "I paint gently," he explained while painting. He then walked to a corner and read a volume on the philosophical approach to existential theology. And then he solved a Rubik's cube. Five times. Eyes closed. One-handed.)

Ta-Da! They are so proud of it. I know they do not totally understand the concept of Easter, but I want to at least introduce it. Even if it means scraping dried paint off of my kitchen table when we're finished.

There you have it! Our Easter preparations. How about you? Do you have any crafts or traditions you want to share?

Have a lovely day!

The Advent Wreath.

Okay. I am not bypassing Thanksgiving and jumping into Christmas, but I realized that the Sunday after Thanksgiving marks the beginning of Advent, so I figured I would go ahead and write a post about Advent wreaths, in case you are interested in doing one this year. That way you have plenty of time to get it ready before Sunday while still having time to perfect your stuffing and roast your turkey. Or dump your cranberry sauce from a can. Woot!

So. What is an Advent Wreath? Traditionally, it is an evergreen wreath holding/surrounding four pillar candles (sometimes five). Here is one I made a few years ago:

Each candle represents a different aspect of Advent. The word "Advent" means "arrival", so the candles are typically Hope, Joy, Peace, and Love; however, that can change depending on tradition/liturgy/preference. For a more kid-friendly version, the candles represent things like Bethlehem, shepherds, and angels and follows the Christmas story. A candle is lit every Sunday in Advent (four candles for four Sundays), and in newer tradition, a fifth candle is lit on Christmas Morning. This would be especially appropriate this year, since Christmas is on a Sunday morning! Each candle lighting is accompanied by a brief reading and prayer. In my family, it's a great way to anticipate Christmas morning, keeping in mind the actual reason for Christmas, amidst parties and shopping and chaos and such.

That's it! Very simple, yet poignant.

There are several ways to make an Advent Wreath. When I was a kid, we would use real evergreen and stuff it into a styrofoam ring. Now I just use a store-bought wreath and place the taper candles inside of it. Some people ditch the evergreen and use walnuts, ornaments, or twigs instead, but I'm a bit of a traditionalist and like that the evergreen represents everlasting life. It's totally up to you, though--you can be as creative as you'd like!

For the readings, I have two kinds. One is a collection that I partly wrote, partly assembled from other sources (a more grown-up version), and another is the booklet we used when I was a kid (a more kid-friendly version). Every year on this blog I post the grown-up readings each Sunday of Advent and last year I received several emails from friends saying that they found it helpful, so I'm going to do that again this year. And, since my kids are older and this blog is really about doing things that are kid-friendly, I'm going to post the kid-friendly readings (I still have the pamphlet, circa 1991!) every Friday. So, if you're looking for a place to do kid-friendly readings, just check here on Friday and you'll be good to go on Sunday. Or, you can just read Sunday's for a more "grown-up" version!

Disclaimer: The Sunday readings are a compilation of my own writing plus the writings of others. I used different sources and forgot to cite them (I'm a college graduate, I promise) so I'm apologizing now for the lack of proper citation.

I hope that made sense. :)

And that's it!

Have a lovely day.