Celebrating Easter: Day 3 (Tuesday)

Good Morning Sweet Friends!

It's going to be a beautiful day here in Buffalo today (sunny and 60!) and that is a very good thing when you're home with kids. I suppose it's a very good thing for anyone who is home (which is EVERYONE right now), but when you're cooped up in the house with three kids and your husband is trying to work from the basement it's a whole different level of crazy.

Needless to say, mom (and Dad!) are happy to see sunshine in the forecast today!

So, about yesterday... out of ALLLL of the links/ideas I posted the only thing we got around to was reading through the tiny Monday section of the "Walking Through Holy Week" PDF we've been using (I'll put the link to the PDF at the end of this post), talking about the Monday Bible verse from my Easter Week Scripture Plan (also linked at the end of the post), and making string eggs (which were just as messy and fun as we anticipated!).

Aren't these cool though?! Granted, they don't all look like easter eggs, which was the idea, but they were still fun to make!

Here is the link to the website where I found them again...all you need is string (we used the friendship bracelet kind), Elmer's glue and some balloons.

Back to what we were going to do and we we actually did do yesterday...

We talked about making the bread from the Holy Week packet, and never got around to it. We also talked about the girls making a video from yesterdays verse, which was John 3:16, because the know the verse so well and I thought it would be a fun way for them to personalize it. 

But, just as in my teaching days, when I had WAY to much jammed into one lesson plan, we'll continue we're we left off today.

We'll be making bread, coloring the easter egg printables I also printed out yesterday, and the girls are excited (and have already started planning for!) their John 3:16 video-- I told them to keep it a total secret and that they could reveal it to Scott and I at dinner (which they're thrilled about).

They're also very, VERY excited to make these Peep Houses I found online. Lol. We make a LOT of jokes about Peeps because he girl's grandmother (Nanner!) absolutely HATES them. Like, really, really things they're gross. So much so that we usually find a way to sneak some into her lap, or onto a plate, or in her purse at Easter time.  I also think they're pretty disgusting, but if ever a Peep had a good use, this would be it. 

Aren't these cute?!

https://www.smartschoolhouse.com/holidays/peeps-houses

(This is a GREAT website for crafts and homeschool ideas as well)

If you don't have the wafer crackers, I would imagine you could build a house out of graham crackers or whatever you have around the house and decorate them with frosting. Frosting always covers over a multitude of sins (hey, I think there is an Easter metaphor in there!).


Lastly, I wanted to share my Easter Pinterest Page with you-- just in case you, like me-- love to browse creative ideas (even if you never get around to them!).  I've pinned a bunch of crafts and coloring pages, some of which we'll use throughout the week, many of which we'll never get around to, but nonetheless, they were fun to look at and now I feel resourceful when the kids are driving me nuts...ahem, I mean, need something fun and productive to do this week. 

That's it for today! 

Blessings to you all.


Tomorrow we're going to work on making cards for many of our family members and neighbors. I picked up 30 cards at the Dollar Tree last week (for .50 each). We'll mail some, but plan to use Saturday to pop many of them in people's mail boxes.

Our Easter Scripture for Today: 

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 

1 John 4:9

Links

Link to Walking Through Holy Week: Bring the Easter Story to Life For Your Kids (scroll towards the bottom where it says "swag bag printables"- this is one of the swag bag items).

Link to Free Printable: EASTER 2020 SCRIPTURES

Have a great day!

Celebrating Easter 2020: Day 2

Happy Monday Morning Friends! 

It honestly feels like a strange Monday morning-- it's foggy here, and Mondays feel a little bit, hmmm...what's the right word right now? Ambiguous?

Monday's feel a little bit ambiguous these days.

Where are we going (with school work)? What are we doing (with school work and around the house)? Who needs my laptop at which hour of the day for which Zoom call or Google classroom assignment? 

And, maybe we should attempt to fold the laundry that we had good intentions of folding and putting away this weekend.

Maybe. 

I'd be lying if I said I feel fully ready for this Easter week with the kids-- this Easter week at home. 

I do a really good job at being the mommy cheerleader with a smile on my face in front of the kids. I've told them (with my super big mom cheerleader smile) that this is going to be a GREAT week and a WONDERFUL Easter, despite all of the changes that have happened, but on the inside...

On the inside, I'm feeling a little bit unsure. Not about Easter itself...the truth of Easter is profound and powerful and never changing, and that is something that we can communicate to our children over and over this week. 

But it is a year without all of the hoopla (Easter egg hunts, activities, Easter bunny visits, the Broadway market (if you live in Buffalo), etc.), and for better or worse our children have grown up with all of these traditions that are suddenly not part of their experience this year (as hoopla-ish as they might seem to us).

My girls also still wishing we were going to Florida and Aubrey was lamenting yesterday that we won't be eating the corn soufflé made by grandma, or Aunt Katie's potato casserole.

"Ooohhh, that corn thing, Mom," Aubrey said of Grandma's corn souffle.  "And the potato thing...they're SOOO good! And we're not going to Grandma's," she said sadly.

"I know, kiddo, but we'll still have a great dinner here! I'll try to make all of those things," I promise... with my cheerleader smile.

Of course I will attempt to re-create the dishes that my family makes, but they always taste better in community made by the family people who usually make them, and as we struggled to create an intentional Live Stream church experience in the middle of the living room with the kids yesterday morning, I was lamenting the fact that we couldn't be in a sanctuary worshipping and listening in real time, with our real, in-life worship leaders, and pastors and Sunday School teachers.

 I keep reminding myself of this though, if this time is teaching us anything, it is teaching us to not take many, many things for granted: People. Life. Time together. Fellowship at our churches...and the list goes on. And that's a very good thing.


In the meantime, despite some ambiguity and uncertainty, we do what we do best as moms...we jump in and make the most of what's in front of us, with a smile on our face, for our kids. 

So, here's what we're up to to celebrate Easter today and this week: 

*For My Own Quiet Time: 

I'm using the YouVersion Bible App Devotional

If you search "Easter" in the Bible App on your phone, you can find quite a few reading plans. I picked a simple one to use in my morning prayer time, along with my own reading of the scriptures where I'm moving between the gospel accounts of Holy Week.

*With the Kids: 

Eastern Hills Wesleyan Church Family Resources:

We are using the "Walking Through Holy Week: Bring the Easter Story to Life For Your Kids" booklet that we received from a local church (Eastern Hills Wesleyan) during an online family Easter event they did last week.

I thought the booklet was posted online, but couldn't find it when I looked this morning. I'm going to reach out to their children's director today to see if I can get the link and post it here for you (so check back later today if you're interested).

They do have some great resources posted on their Children's Ministry page that you can access from home though:

https://easternhillschurch.org/kids

And here some links to other FREE Family/Children's resources I found online to help you celebrate Easter as well: 

-Saddleback Church's Kid's YouTube Channel: 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEbM1vIWVubIANRR54YuS0g


-Children's Ministry.com Website:

If you search "Holy Week devotional" in their search bar, a list of links to multiple family activities and reading plans comes up. Here is the link to that search:

https://childrensministry.com/?s=holy+week+devotional


-Focus on the Family:

This Holy Week Family Activity Guide also offers some great suggestions for activities and readings you can engage your kids in throughout the week (broken down by age). I really like the white t-shirt activity suggested in the "Tween" section.

https://www.focusonthefamily.com/parenting/holy-week-and-easter-activities-for-the-whole-family/

-Some other Easter activities we're going to try today,  just for fun:

Paper Easter Egg Templates

 I found these Easter Egg templates online. I'm going to print them out on cardstock and have the girls decorate them with markers, glitter glue, washi tape, and whatever else I can find around the house later (photos to come tomorrow!)

https://www.firstpalette.com/printable/easter-eggs.html


String Eggs

This craft description actually uses the word "messy", but hey, we're home, the house is kind of a mess anyways, and these look really cool if they actually work! (Again, pictures to come tomorrow!).

https://craftwhack.com/cool-craft-string-easter-eggs/

Resurrection Eggs

These have become one of our favorite ways to talk about the Easter story with our girls. We made ours three or four years ago and they are in need of some updating, so we're going to work on them this week. We always pull ours out on Good Friday as a kid-friendly way to talk about the Easter Story.

Here's a photo of our well-used Resurrection Eggs that we're going to update this week:

This was my favorite link to making them online. We'll be working on ours on Thursday, but I wanted to share the link today so you could start looking for the items around the house, or add them to your list if you're heading to the grocery store (though please don't go out on an extra occasion for anything you weren't planning on this week):

http://playeatgrow.com/2012/03/play-and-grow-homemade-resurrection.html/

One last thing...

One of my favorite sources for online printables is a website called the Hope Ink Blog. I don't know Emily Hope, but I love her work and when I popped into my email this morning I saw this link to her free Easter Printables. I've ordered cards from her website before, and have printed out a number of her Images for use around the house. They feel like little rays of sunshine to me when I need some visual encouragement in my week. Here's an example of one of her printables (that I LOVE), and the link to them online:

https://www.hopeink.com/printables/

Lastly, here are our crafts from yesterday...our palm leaves and coloring pages (mine is the one that is still unfinished!):

 I hope you all  have a fun and blessed day! 

Palm Sunday 2020: Ways to Worship From Home

Happy Sunday, everyone.

It's Palm Sunday, Holy Sunday, one week before Easter Sunday, which seems like an ironic and beautiful thing in the midst of a worldwide crises. Churches across the country are streaming services live today, some are even handing out palm leaves via drive-thru pick-up. Hopefully you were able to find a Palm Sunday service that was streaming live this morning. If you struggled to find one, here are the links to three local churches that I love and respect (and have been a part of in one capacity or another during my adult life). If you missed the Live Stream the recordings will be available online all week):

1.) theWELL, Buffalo, where we currently attend streams their service live at 10 am currently during the Coronavirus church shut downs. Here is the link to the live stream: theWELL Buffalo Live Stream

2.) Eastern Hills Wesleyan Church (in Clarence)- where Scott and I were married, Ava and Aubrey attended pre-school, and I spent many years in the youth group, will also be streaming live at 10: Eastern Hills Live Stream.  

3.) The Chapel at Crosspoint, where we spent a number of years when we first moved back to Buffalo in 2009, and where we have many friends: The Chapel Live Stream (at 9 & 11 am). 

(Note: there are many other wonderful churches in Buffalo also doing live streams right now. These are just the three that I am most familiar with and wanted to share in case you weren't sure where to start). 

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I wanted to offer a few resources to help parents celebrate this holy week of Easter with joy, despite how strange it seems to not be gathering in person in churches across the country, or with friends and family during this holiday time. 

I'm doing this easy palm leaf collage with the girls this morning. You can print out the template from DLTK Bible.com (which is a great resource for faith and school aged kids crafts): http://www.dltk-bible.com/crafts/mpalmcollage.htm

I printed the palm leaf on heavier paper stock for the girls (regular printer paper works just fine). We are planning on using green water color on the palm leaf first, and then will add scraps of different colored green paper to cover the rest. 

I've printed a couple of extra copies that we will deliver to neighbors (and maybe Grandma and Grandma, who live a couple of miles away) later. 

I promise to take pictures after we're finished and post them here later. 

I also printed out a couple of these coloring pages for the girls (found at http://tomiannie.blogspot.com/2016/03/hosanna-coloring-page-8.html?m=1) to either keep them busy during the online church service, or just as something to do later: 

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE We'll be writing out the daily verse and posting on our fridge each day (see below- it doesn't have to be Pinterest fancy friends! Mine never are!). You could also do this on a chalk board, or just post on a piece of paper on your fridge. 

The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him shouting, 

"Hosanna!"

"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"

"Blessed is the king of Israel." 

John 12: 12-13

The last thing I wanted to share with you today is a podcast episode from Proverbs 31 Ministries (one of my favorite women's ministry websites) titled, "How Do We Pray in the Midst Of Fear". If you're struggling to know how to even pray right now, take a few minutes to listen to this today: 

https://www.proverbs31.org/listen/podcast/full-podcast/2020/03/10/how-do-we-pray-in-the-midst-of-fear


I'll be back tomorrow to tell you about the Resurrection Eggs we'll be making and using later this week, as well as the neighborhood Easter card project the girls and I are working on. 

Celebrating Easter 2020 with Kids

This past week the girls and I started talking about how Easter is next weekend and everything feels so, well, different. 

So much has changed in such a short period of time. 

So much. 

The conversation revolved around how we'll be cooking a ham and potatoes at home...alone. No grandmas and grandpas. No aunts or cousins. No dressing up for church and hugging our church family in-person. No worshipping in a sanctuary, in community, in person. It does feel a little strange, and a little sad. I understand their disappointment. I'm disappointed too. 

On top of it, our plans to travel to Florida next Monday (the day after Easter) have also been cancelled, which I'm not lamenting in the grand scope of things, but the kids had been looking forward to it for months. Ava has been picking out "Florida" outfits online and talking about sitting in the sunshine since December (listen, when you live in Buffalo you dream about sunshine in Florida!). 

I've told them that a bazillion other things have been cancelled for so many people all around the country-- vacations, weddings, school plays, proms, end of school year celebrations, concerts-- the list goes on and on. It did little to quell their disappointment. I mean, they are kids after all. 

After our conversation I spent some time pondering how we would celebrate Easter despite all of the changes and feel excited about it. What could we do? Where could I be more intentional? How can we make the house feel festive and decorative? 

I also kept asking myself this question, What truth can I share with the kids this week to help them feel ok about this different-kind-of-Easter?  

God spoke to me pretty quickly as I prayed about it. As a matter of fact, it was almost an instantaneous answer. I asked the question and this is what I heard in my spirit, Jesus is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow (Hebrews 13:8).

Whoa. Right. The most important thing about Easter hasn't changed at all. 

That's what the kids need to know. That's what we all need to know.  

The raw truth is, Christ came to this earth, conquered death, and rose again to save us from our sins and offer eternal life. Nothing changes that. Not even Coronavirus. 

He promises he will come back one day and that there will be a new heaven and a new earth. He promises new life and that all of this brokenness will be renewed, restored and redeemed. 

So, we will ABSOLUTELY be celebrating Easter this week, and we're going to enjoy every minute of it, as different as it might feel. 

I spent some time organizing a few Bible verses (one for each day of the week) and sorting through several activities online that I plan to do with the kids-- a few things that will hopefully make the week feel more "fun" and celebratory, and not just another week at home in the middle of our socially distant lives. 

If you'd like to join us, we'd love to have you along. I'll be posting something here each day (Sunday-Friday)-- a scripture, some pictures (of what we're doing), and a few activities that I found online, mostly with materials I either knew we already had at home, or that would be easy to find. 

If you hop over to my Little Writer Momma Facebook page each morning you’ll find a link to the daily blog posts, and tomorrow I'll also be posting a PDF with the Sunday-Sunday scripture verses we'll be focusing on this week. If you click the "like" button at the top of the FB page the posts and links will find their way into your Facebook feed as well. 

I'd also love to hear what you are all doing to celebrate this year.  Please share your pictures, links and ideas. We are still a community, it's just a different sort of community right now and so we must lean on one another, spur one another along and continue to encourage each other to hold fast to unchanging truth in a world that is always changing.