Easter

First the obligatory Easter portraits:

After church at the Vineyard on Easter Sunday, I took the boys to a local park to feed the ducks and take their Easter pictures. Unfortunately it was just too cold and windy to unwrap Joshua from his snuggle nest in the stroller. I got a few of Caleb, but photos of the boys together had to wait until we got home. Above, Joshua is holding Kevin's wooden truck his mom handed down to us. The boys love that thing. The picture below is from the park.

Okay, now back up to the day before Easter Sunday. I don't know what to call it- except Saturday. Mom calls it Spring Day and usually hosts an Egg hunt and lunch for friends and neighbors. Of all the things I inherited from her, I did not receive her hospitality gene-ious. So we kept it small. On Saturday morning the boys woke up to find the Easter bunny had come and left presents in their buckets. (Where can one find a non-girly Easter basket that isn't a puffy baseball with a handle?)

Despite the fact that I'd prepped Caleb by telling him the Easter bunny had brought him presents, when opening his bag he said "Oh look! Thanks Meaw!" (That's my mom's monicker, given to her by my nephew.) Each time he pulled out something new, he said the same thing- "Thanks, Meaw!" Even though some of the stuff was from me, he was mostly right.

The frog, also a gift from Mom, was full of eggs.

Joshua's favorite part was the plastic bag and he cried for a while after I took it away. Here's a shot of Hannah licking her chops as she spies her favorite: chocolate.
During their afternoon nap I hid eggs in the backyard jungle. (I hadn't mowed in a really long time.) Caleb had fun finding the eggs but he was even more excited by the jingling coins held therein. The hunt took a while because he kept stopping, opening an egg and exclaiming, "Look! Moneys! I put 'em my bank!" After the hunt we got the bank and made a deposit.

I'm still trying to figure out what exactly our Easter traditions are. I like the idea of keeping the eggs and candy on a day seperate from resurrection Sunday, like my mom does. Other than that, I'm not sure. I guess I've got a year to figure out what we'll do next year. I want Jesus to be the central idea, of course, but how to teach a young child about His death and resurrection? Any ideas guys?