For Boys AND Girls!

Recently I’ve realized just how little notice we give to Easter. We always attend Good Friday and Easter Sunday services, hide Easter Eggs, paint Easter Eggs and read the Easter Story, but there’s hardly any lead-up, and I always feel like my kids go to the services not knowing any of the answers to the questions. I also think that Easter is just as important to Christians as Christmas; arguably more important. Yet, even our church doesn’t give it much attention before the day. So this year, I decided, would be different. We began at the start of Lent by making a Jesus Tree. This activity was recommended to me by a Catholic friend. I just love it! It’s made by Nancy at Catholic Sprouts. Basically, every day you read a little story about Jesus’ life or ministry, the kids colour a corresponding picture, and you glue it on your tree (the tree in this case is a cross. So appropriate!).

Another way I’m trying to get the kids to anticipate Easter is to listen to Traditional Easter Hymns on YouTube. Hymns like, Power in the Blood, He Lives! and Christ the Lord is Risen Today. We also started to learn to sing Christ Arose while I played it on the piano, but with the two little ones always wanting to bang on play the piano that was more chaotic than lovely! We’ll keep working at it, though!

We also are decorating our house a bit. We bought balloons with flowers on them, a little ceramic cross, and of course our Jesus Trees are hanging on the walls.

Lastly, we made Easter Bonnets – the whole point of this post (although I also wanted to encourage you to make a bigger deal of Easter if you are in the same boat as me!). I remember my Mum standing on the bottom of my bed, reaching up onto the back of the top shelf of my closet to get the Easter Bonnet I wore to our Easter Sunday service every year. It was so exciting to see her pull it out. I felt so beautiful wearing my little hat, and it also made the day seem more special and important. And these hats are so easy (and cheap!) to make that you’ll be thrilled to try it out! Look!

We bought the supplies for these hats one morning and made them the following afternoon. So, if it’s Good Friday and you’re reading this, or even if it’s Saturday afternoon, if you’re close to a Walmart and a Dollar Tree (or something similar) it’s totally possible for your to whip this up in time for Easter Sunday morning. Take a peek!

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Supplies:

• hat (we got the girl ones from Dollar Tree and the boy one from Walmart
• artificial flowers (Dollar Tree)
• glue gun and glue
• ice pack – for when you (or your daughter 🤦‍♀️) burn yourself on the glue gun. Optional

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Instructions:

1. Pull the flowers and leaves off the stalk

2. Let your child lay the flowers around the brim where they think they look best.

3. Glue on the flowers with hot glue. Use your discretion when sticking them on. My son (7-years-old) was much more concerned that I stick them on exactly where he put them than were my 2- and 4-year-old. I think it’s important to respect their choices BUT you don’t want them to go to church looking silly, especially if they’re old enough to understand that people are laughing at them, we don’t want any tears on Easter!

4. Now glue and shove in whatever greenery you want. I like to put it in the cracks between and behind the flowers, and I was shocked at how much better it made the hat look.

5. Put them away until Easter Sunday! I’m sure mine will get destroyed or lost if I leave them out!

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Finished Projects:

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Isn’t that a great picture? He is so proud of his hat! I think we’ve done a good job this year of making Easter important; more of an event. Hopefully we’ll be able to just keep building on these ideas and make them traditions. Christ rising from the grave to save us eternally is so important, and I want my kids to know it. If you don’t know about what Jesus has done for YOU, and would like more information please fill out a note in the Contact page. I’d love to talk to you. I hope you all have a very happy Easter!