The Easter celebration that almost wasn't

We had a busy week last week. The kind of week that had us staggering to the finish line and exhausted at the thought of Monday coming again so soon.  I'm going to let that fact take the blame for our pathetic Easter celebration.  

Before I list some of the things that kept us so busy during the week, I'll describe our Easter Sunday.

7 a.m. - In the interest of neighborly camaraderie, I dragged myself out of bed after getting to bed very late and threw together some breakfast-type food to take to the annual early morning Easter egg hunt held in our cul-de-sac.

8 a.m. - I tried to get family members to get up, but they were all also very tired, and only Dan and Joseph slowly made their way downstairs. In the meantime, some neighborhood kids knocked on the door to tell us that we were late and were holding up everyone's egg hunt. We made it across the street almost half an hour late.  Joseph found his 9 eggs and we talked to neighbors for a bit and then headed back to the house.

Joseph was the only kid who really cared about what was in his Easter basket. Coincidentally, he is the only kid who has a picture of himself by his Easter basket. He received a furry bear friend he has dubbed "Lee Bear."  Lee Bear likes to read, snuggle, and just hang out amiably.

10:50 a.m. - We careened out of the house toward the church building, almost late but with everyone awake and dressed for church. We did not, however, have time to take an Easter morning picture of everyone in their finery. It's the first time in the history of our family that we haven't taken an Easter morning picture. I told everyone we are taking one next week and pretending it is Easter.

2:30 p.m. - Home from church. Dan stumbled up the stairs and collapsed on the bed, oblivious to the need for food. I threw a few random food items at children in the vicinity and then staggered up to bed as well. In fact, everyone was asleep in short order (except for poor Bailey, who had been so busy all weekend she hadn't addressed the homework for her 4 AP classes, so she spent the afternoon studying).  Joseph actually fell asleep face down on the floor. Do you think we were all a little tired??

6:40 p.m. - I opened my eyes slowly, wondering where and who I was. It took a few minutes for me to realize that we had slept the day away. We had slept EASTER afternoon away. And, sadly, no nice little elves had cooked us our Easter dinner. We also hadn't done anything else Easter-related the entire week, so we had several must-do traditions still on the docket for the evening. 

The night before Easter I had arrived home past midnight and Dan and I then assisted the Easter bunny by hunting down our Easter baskets in the garage. Luckily, we set out the baskets in time for the bunny to fill them with candy, books, and a few small gifts. 

In the week before Easter we did manage to focus our scripture study on the Savior's last week before His crucifixion and resurrection.  We also covered the fireplace with pictures of Jesus and watched some fantastic movies about Christ's life earlier in the week.


7:00 p.m. - Now wide awake and slightly panicked as the sun was beginning to set, I quickly dumped out the candy from everyone's plastic Easter eggs and stuffed them with coins. Then I threw the eggs out in the backyard and summoned the kids for the traditional family egg hunt in the backyard. Excited about the prospect of some extra coins for the piggy bank, Joseph and Aubrey joined me for the hunt.

 Joseph was the lucky one who found pesos from Mexico mixed into the coins in his egg. Oops!

We pulled together a passably decent Easter dinner with impressive speed, and at 8:00 p.m. we finally sat down to eat. 

Joseph was in charge of decorating the table, and he did a great job, even making "Happy Easter" signs for each place setting.

 We call this the "Logan Ellefsen smile." When I finally get the Missouri pictures posted, it will be clear why that is the case!  

 Bailey was at the table too but declined to be captured in a photo.

 Ham, potatoes, various fruits and veggies, rosemary garlic bread, and strawberry shortcake for dessert!

During dinner we had a really fun gospel discussion, with the kids all posing questions they have been wondering about. I love those kind of discussions.

Finally dinner was done and more or less cleaned up, and at 
9:30 p.m. on Easter evening we colored Easter eggs. Why bother at that point?  So we could take a picture of it, of course, and so our 9 year old didn't feel cheated.

And now, I have so much more to say about our busy week but this post is getting ridiculously long. So I'll start fresh with a new post. 

Here's to Easter 2014, a year in which we didn't do everything perfectly, but did focus on what really matters . . . our Savior Jesus Christ and our family.