(wearing my mom's vintage dress and some thrifted, red vintage shoes, necklace f 21. love them)
Our Easter weekend was busy and wonderful. Our church (edited to add: I discovered is a lie) had a temple outing and then headed off together for a little bbq and Easter egg hunt, followed by a slide show of everyone. A very lovely, very pleasant, somewhat stressful, very exhausting day. Our Sunday was full of reflections on Christ, chocolate, salsa and naps. I hope everyone's Easter was wonderful!
I love Easter! I love cuddly chics, bunnies, lambs, baskets, bonnets, decor, pastels, lace, flowers, Cadbury bunny commercials... but what I truly, deeply love, is the True meaning of Easter.
I have a firm foundation and testimony in Jesus Christ, our Savior and his love and sacrifice for us. It is easy to forget this at times, but when we feel alone and in need, remembering Him and how He remembers us can help us. Let us always remember Him, not just when we need Him in times of trouble, but always! This video is a beautiful message about our Savior's atonement, and is my Easter message to you. You can read the full talk, by Apostle, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, entitled "None Were With Him", in which he describes the Savior’s solitary journey to overcome sin and death and testifies of the resulting blessings to all mankind.
In my family, our Easter tradition was laying out carrots and milk for the Easter bunny. On Easter morning, we awoke to a nibbled carrot stick, an empty cup of milk and milky paw prints on the table and the floor. Evidence!! Question. When you were little, did you envision the Easter Bunny to be like an actual looking bunny, or some huge rabbit like the kind in bunny costumes?
"A Little History: The origins of celebrating Easter seem to begin early in the third century with a movable feast honoring Christ’s resurrection. Early Christians may have eased cultural differences and religious conversions by relating their feast of Christ’s “renewal” or resurrection with Anglo-Saxon’s pagan spring celebrations involving Eostre, the goddess of spring and renewal, who was depicted at times with a hare or eggs. The Germans, much later in the 1500s, introduced the Easter Bunny or the “Oschter Haws” who would lay colored eggs in hidden caps and bonnets of boys and girls on Easter morning (boys made nests in their caps/girls made nests in their bonnest for the Bunny to lay the eggs).
By the time this tradition was brought to the United States, it was popular to leave out baskets for bunny and egg shaped sweets. Easter is now celebrated religiously and/or secularly throughout the world. As Christians, our family celebrates the Resurrection during Easter and we also are lucky enough to have the Easter Bunny hop by to celebrate it with us.
The following is a tradition we have begun with our family to help teach the meaning of the holiday: a few weeks before Easter we grow wheatgrass. As the wheatgrass grows, each day we review a little bit of the last days of Christ’s life and his resurrection. The definition of resurrection is “the act of rising from the dead or returning to life”. Since Easter is a time to celebrate the resurrection and a renewal of life, early spring is a perfect time to teach your children about birth, growth, the resurrection and life. While the grass is growing , we leave the grass out for the Easter bunny to leave treats on as an early reward for learning of and knowing the meaning of Easter. The above photo is our wheatgrass from this year!" ~segment by No Fuss Fabulous (click link for directions on growing wheatgrass and ideas of what to do with it!)
Another great idea to do with your children, is this paper Easter lily. You simply trace your child's hand on a piece of paper, cut it out, roll it up, roll the fingers down and attach it to pipe cleaners to make a paper flower. I think, you can teach how the Lord had a hand in creating so many wonderful things for us, like flowers and He also gave His life for us.
Then, after each family member has created their own handprint flower, put it in a vase together and show the children how the family is special and created by God, and each member of the family is here to love and help each other. They will see how beautiful and strengthening it is to put a single flower together with more to make the family bouquet. Full instructions/photos at Artists Helping Children.
Today, everyone who participated in Viv's Out On A Whim Egg Hunt will be revealing both the eggs they made and received, so we can check out each other's blogs and "hunt" for those who made/received our eggs!
The yellow cuties shown above are the eggs I made (I added a small hint of glitter to the flower's centers after the photo).
Here are the eggs I received!
A lovely aqua blue painted egg with red polka dots, rick rack trim and a lace and rose top. So perfect and gorgeous! And a cutout blue egg with glass glitter and a lovely scene inside of a sweet little duck and the cutest yellow flower buds inside. Stop the world, I am in love with an egg. I know have the most beautiful shelf ever (complete with roses my husband picked from his mom's rose bush)! If you prefer simple and sweet, this is what my Spring mantle looked like BEFORE!
How did Viv know that I was redecorating for Spring and adding blues to my pink/green room (it's no secret I have been aching to change the color theme for a while)? (making a storebought slipcover work and pillow redo room makeover post coming soon... I can't wait!)
I also made some cute robin's egg necklaces in the shop, this has red accents, and the other has ivory accents. A couple more will be listed within the next couple of days. Perfect for Spring!
He Lives by Simon Dewey
Today and yesterday is The 179th Annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Salt Lake City. The conference will feature inspirational messages from members of the First Presidency, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and other General Authorities and general officers of the Church. You can watch or listen to the conference on the Internet. And next month, a dvd and magazine will be available of the conference as well. For information on worldwide broadcast times and options, see the broadcast schedule. Feel free to tune in!
I missed yesterday's conference due to a funeral for my wonderful sister in law's, sister. She was only 33 and died of cancer. It was a sad occasion, since she left 3 young children, but happy that she is no longer in pain and that she is reunited with friends and family. We Mormons belief that death is only another step in life, as we believe we can be sealed for time and all eternity as a family unit through Heavenly Father's plan of happiness.
I will probably post later about some of my favorite talk's from the conference. Even for those who don't believe in God or Jesus Christ or share our same beliefs, there is always an inspirational message that is uplifting. I especially love this one from last year, from President Dieter F. Uchtdorf: The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. You dont need money, position, or influence in order to create something of substance or beauty His full talk, entitled Happiness, Your Heritage, can be read HERE. I love this one!
As some of you may or may not know, the HBO show Big Love has aired an episode featuring sacred religious ceremonies in the temple that we keep very sacred and dear to us. The temple is a place where we strive to remain wholesome and worthy to enter into it's doors. People have taken the wear and symbolism out of context and consider us Mormons as peculiar and cultish because of these, yet they seem to forget that many religions and even secular events (such as a high school/college graduation...) wear ceremonious clothing and rituals.
I can honestly say, that the temple is one of my favorite places. I was married to my sweetheart for time and all eternity in the temple and have been blessed to be able to attend many times since. It is a place of refuge, of peace, of love, and a place where we go to worship our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
For The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints official statement on the television show Big Love, please read HERE
If you would like to learn more about why we go to temples, watch the video below about the blessings of the temple and a peek at what it looks like inside some of them.
To find out what members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints (otherwise known as Mormons) believe about Jesus Christ, please visit HERE.
