Resurrection Day

This time of year is my favorite. Spring flowers, warmer weather, deep cleaning and reorganizing, and celebrations. Specifically, Passover and Easter. But it's not just Easter, I like the whole preparatory celebration of Lent and Good Friday leading up to Easter Sunday. I've often wondered why this isnt the greatest holiday of the year compared with Christmas. Yeah we wouldnt have Salvation had Jesus not been born, but remeber in the garden when Jesus was praying? He chose to die in our place and to be the ultimate expression of love. Had he been born and never chosen that, it wouldnt have mattered that he were born at all. So that got me thinking. Why not celebrate just that? I've not been a fan of Easter eggs and the hunts and things like that for a while now just because for me as a kid, that was way more appealing than the somber reflection on death and we want Easter to be a learning experience. That's why we don't do Easter bunnies or Santa claus or even tooth fairies. Not that there is anything necessarily wrong with those things or the people that take part in those activities. Hear me. Thats not it at all. We just want to do something different. If you're offended by this post just know that is not our intention. We just want to create a different experience for our family and share that experience with our readers who might be interested in doing the same thing.

Here are some things we have done, are doing, and plan to do in the coming years. Maybe it will inspire you. If there's an interesting and creative activity you do that isn't here, please let us know all about it!

For years we have just avoided the whole egg hunt chocolate bunny Easter basket frenzy and have just had family time and a big Sunday meal. Early on We had taken the oldest to some Easter activities and volunteered at a few community events. They made an impression on me and brought up a lot of childhood memories. And as I hear about my friend's kids missing out, or bringing home a great bounty, I remember why. No, not because I was scarred as a child for not having found many Easter eggs. Nor am I having remorse for having found far more than everyone else. But honestly it's because it taught me nothing about the sacrifice of Christ. Sure, there's lessons in there spinkled with the red jelly bean drops of blood and the peanut butter cross and the empty tomb of the chocolate bunny and the glorified body of the sparkly Peeps. It seems like the possibilities to start new fun and creative traditions are far an wide. And I love some of the ones I've been finding online that are centered more on teaching a lesson. Like these Ressurection Rolls. This is what we're doing this year. And maybe next year we'll make this garland. Last year we had a mini Seder we managed on our own. Although I'd rather take them to a Messianic community Seder in the future. On Sunday morning we'll have a sunrise service at our friend's farm.

Here's some pictures from last year of Zeke and Haddie's first chocolate experience!

And petting a lamb this year. 

And then when all the littles are settled down for the night we'll watch The Passion. Which is a tradition with the oldest. We started by watching the Jesus of Nazareth as a sort of marathon all weekend leading up to Sunday morning. The Gospel of John is another good one to watch during this time. And then follow with Paul the Apostle. I think next year we'll do more hands on in the days prior to the holiday. I'd like to make an Easter garden to have the whole week as an on going activity. One other idea I saw was the Ressurection Eggs. They tell have items inside that tell the story along with scripture. I like that, even if it is eggs. Maybe we could find something else to put the items in. Another of my favorite and perhaps most impacting actives is reading all four of the gospel accounts of His death, burial, and resurrection back to back. Finding new details I never noticed before and reflecting, often with great waves of emotion when I realize what my fate would be like without that sacrifice.

No Mess Painting

We like to try new things. We also like to be creative. The most ideal situation is to do these things with as little mess as possible. With a brood of very young children this can be a challenge! But we've been finding some good ones and want to share them. Maybe you have a favorite 'little activity' and would like to share. If so contact me! megrussell@gmail.com

My little ones love to paint. Who doesn't? Me! Ha! Well, I love to paint too, but the clean up can be a nightmare and ruin the fun stressing about it during the process. Thankfully we've found some middle ground! And it's so simple. We had some children's paint that was too translucent to make fun prints with so we taped a large Ziploc bag to the table with a white piece of paper behind it, squirted two colors in and zipped it shut.

This led to hours of fun, not only for the 2 and 3 year old, but the 13 year old and myself and my husband. Even my mom had some fun with it! It was hard not to! We left it on the table for a few days even.

Since it's not technically painting, and you don't get to keep your beautiful ever transforming creations (unless you take photos) we gave it a new name. Squishing. It was super fun to do and to watch as the two colors slowly blended together. Which was another great lesson in color mixing! We wrote letters and shapes and drew pictures and just went wild. Win win. It was great to have at the table to distract and entertain while I cooked too. And easy to wipe off after eating on this fancy interactive place mat. When the bags wore down too much we just pulled it up in once piece and threw it away. 

One thing I'd do differently next time though is to buy better bags. I used some cheap ones I had on hand already and they were quite flimsy and didn't hold up too long to scratching (see above), which as you can see, started immediately. :) Perhaps even putting the clear tape over the bag completely would help? 

So there you have it. A fun quick, easy, no mess activity for children of all ages! Ever done this? Let me know! I'd love to hear about it!

Birth Story #3

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
Jeremiah 1:4-6

What an amazing thing to experience three pregnancies and them all be so different. And the children are different. And the births are different. I've been so blessed to have had such easy quick births. You can read about Zeke's birth here and Haddie's birth here.

This whole pregnancy I anticipated (as well as let people know) having a baby by 42 weeks. I go ahead and add the extra gestation time because Zeke was almost 43 weeks and Haddie almost 42. I figured it was safe. Plus right at the 42 week marker was Thanksgiving. So it was easy to just say, "we should have a baby by Thanksgiving!" A great thing to look forward to also. As the time got closer to that holiday we had friends and family visit. Yet, no baby. And Thanksgiving came and went, as did our guests. I was not glowing anymore. Going one day over the estimated time of arrival is tough! Much less two whole weeks over! And despite my efforts to ignore it, the delay affected me. The next day I called my wonderful midwife who I can always count on to lift me up in times like these. It's funny too because you would think I would know better. On the phone I cried, "I'm not having this baby and I'm going to stay pregnant forever!" Which makes me laugh now. She knew better and said that maybe it was a boy and that would be a pattern for me to grow baby boys a little longer. Really? Neat. The human body never ceases to amaze me. (By the way, we didn't find out the gender of this one so it was fun having a surprise.) just having that reassurance helped me settle those emotions and recenter myself so i could relax and wait till this little apple was nice and ripe enough to fall off the tree on its own. That very night... my water broke. I hadn't experienced that with the other two, so it was kinda exciting. It happened while I was sleeping even! 1:30 am I got Darryl up and called the midwife. Her recommendation? Go back to sleep. Are you kidding me? But I tried. The baby however, was ready to come on out. So contractions started shortly thereafter. The two midwives come, mom comes,sister-in-law comes. We set up camp and get everything prepared and sit around and had a pajama party. Except I was experiencing contractions (Which for me, aren't that bad. Nothing at all like after pains, ouch!). After a couple of hours it wasn't going fast enough for me and so I walked around the room while we chatted. Not a big fan of labor contractions while standing. It wasn't long either and I could tell it was intensifying. So into the pool I went! Jordanwoke up. Zeke and Haddie woke up. I didn't mind the activity in the house at all this time because I actually wanted everyone to be there. After a little while I started crowning. We let it progress until the head was almost out and called everyone in. Sister-in-law was filming... and crying (so sweet!). For me i have found the best thing to do is just let my body do the work and let the baby come out on its own. I do mostly controlled breathing and very little, if at any at all, pushing. Just a minute after everyone came to see,our newest little boy came out to meet everyone too. Zeke cried out, "BABY!"as Haddie just looked on in wonder (or shock!). Zeke jumped in the pool with us for a few moments and Jordan cut the cord. It was a very special event for all of us. And just in time for breakfast! 6 hours total labor. I wish I had written this sooner. Four months is long enough to lose a lot of detail. What is it like having three under three? I'll blog about that often. 

Pallu (Pah-Loo) Gideon Russell

9lbs 2oz 20in