Eagerly Awaiting EASTER!

I recently read a portion of Noel Piper's book, Treasuring God in our Traditions and was inspired to do more with the girls in anticipation of Easter. We count down a full month before Christmas, but we often don't do anything for Easter until the day of (maybe an egg hunt the day before-ha!) I'm not at all opposed to having an Easter Egg hunt. It's all good fun.

But as my kids grow up, I want to spend more time talking about the gospel ~the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. These are some of the core components of our faith.

 

I decided to do a combination of things that I have heard and read. Noel shares the great idea of doing Lenten Lights with your children. It's basically a series of small devotionals using candles. If you have older children, she suggests doing a devotional each Sunday of lent, but if you have younger children and want to do daily devotionals during Holy Week, she suggests starting on the Saturday before Palm Sunday and doing a devotional each night.

This is her description of the candles. I love it!

The Symbolism of the Seven Candles

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). But for a while it seemed as if the darkness was overcoming—for a long while.

Your seven candles symbolize the Light of the World—the Light that was God’s glory and that illuminated God for us—the Light that, in the end, seemed to have been darkened. As we move through the season preceding Easter, the candles are snuffed out one by one, until all are dark on Good Friday, when Jesus died and the earth was covered with shadow. Darkness apparently had won. The Light of the World had been extinguished. It was finished.

But NO! Easter brings resurrection! Life! Return from death! The Light has won and all the candles burn as we praise him—the Light of the World, the Bright Morning Star, the Glory of God.

I just used birthday candles that I stuck into Styrofoam because it's all I had ;) 

We are basically going to do the candles along with resurrection eggs since the kids are so little. I'll probably step it up to the full devotional next year. But I like the visual of the eggs for a 2 and a 4 year old. 

On the blog Sugar Lander, I found this simple post on DYI Resurrection Eggs. Thank you Casey!

Here's Casey's picture of hers.

I have 10 eggs and 9 candles and only 9 days until Easter, so I did two eggs on the first night. It's as flexible as you want it to be. So honestly start whenever you are able - even if its just a few days before Easter. Something is better than nothing, right?!

The girls loved seeing what was inside!

Tim explaining the story of Easter.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead... 

1 Peter 1:3 

There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays!

We had an absolutely wonderful time home with family in the States for Thanksgiving and Christmas! I feel truly blessed to have had the opportunity to see so many I love and have so much time home.

Our trip ended up looking like this:
1 Week in Chicago (Tim presenting a paper and preaching at The Orchard, and catching up with our dear friends) Here are some of those pics. There are so many pictures I wish I would have taken, but forgot! I didn't get one pic of my LIFE group gals from church or with our time with Suzanne and her sweet family including their new lil' bundle!

But I sure did enjoy the time with everyone :)

Rose and Finley

Maddy and her friends Michael and Graham

My dear friend Kim and I

All the kiddos from my sweet momtourage friend that I taught with in Chicago

1 Week in Philadelphia and State College for Thanksgiving with our families

Cousins on the Baylor side over Thanksgiving. It was gorgeous out!

Four girls with their flowers ;)

Tim and his brother Jon with the two littlest ones. 

My sister's two kiddos (Rylee and Jordan) with my two

1 Week in Vancouver, WA with Ryan and Kelly Beardsley while Tim preached at their church. We got to see the West Coast and the Pacific for the first time! Our parents and Tim's sister shared the load of watching the girls, so Tim and I were able to be ALONE together. It was a wonderfully refreshing time! Here are all of the pics of our time there.

Kel and I in Portland

Tim and I at Canon Beach, OR

3 Weeks in Pennsylvania (split between Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, State College, Bellefonte, and Altoona) This was the most relaxing time because we were able to just BE in one place for a while and rest with family. What a wonderful opportunity! Here is an absolutely massive amount of pictures from our time in PA. These are my faves though :)

My sister Rachael and her husband Joe doing a magnetic Manger Scene Christmas Story with the kids

Grandpa Jordan building a gingerbread house with the girls

Tim and the girls dancing before church

Nana and Poppy Baylor with the girls

Grandma Jordan snuggling Rose

The girls in anticipation of Christmas morning

Mom Baylor and I sledding with the girls ;)

Grandpa Jordan watching Tinkerbell with Rose

Maddy's First Easter

Maddy and I were in Pittsburgh, PA visiting my twin sister Rachael and her husband over Easter. I flew by myself with Maddy girl while Tim stayed back to work on his thesis. He joined us halfway through the week. The first flight with a baby was quite the experience. But I will leave that crazy story for its own blog post.

I don't have much time (or energy) tonight, but I had to post a few pics of our sweet girl on Easter Sunday. It is hard to believe that she will be 4 months this Wednesday!