Sneek Peek- Music Man Characters

I just wanted to give you a small peek at the characters in this weekend's performance of Music Man

Winthrop and townsperson

Our Easter Weekend

This year our Easter weekend was mixed with shortened vacation thanks to all of the snow this winter and then we added play practice, so we squeezed things in and had a good time all the same.  We decorated eggs with the 4-H'ers,

decorated 20 dozen

Garrett is in the blue sweatshirt

 then we had the Easter Egg hunt on Saturday morning. We attended Sonrise Service at Old Zion Church with my family and then we went to worship at Knox United Methodist where we attend. Then we spent part of the afternoon with my family (a first at Easter due to work schedules) and had lunch and an Egg Hunt.

 

The Crew at Sonrise Service

Checking Out Baskets

Hmm where do I start?

Egg Hunt at Nanny's

Are those carrots?

Hope all had a Happy Easter!

Easter Children's Sermon- EMPTY

I was once again given children's sermon for Easter which I totally love doing, but I do try to step it up and hit it from a different angle when I do have this opportunity. So the more I thought about what I was going to do, the more the thought of "the tomb was empty" ran through my head. So here is what I ended up with.
Before service you will need a box(empty) and you might want to make it look pretty.

My EMPTY Easter gift-
Praise the Lord it was EMPTY!

"Good Morning, and Happy Easter! You all look quite handsome and pretty in your Easter outfits. Well look what I have here- an Easter Gift! Now that is exciting, but it reminds me of a couple of months ago. You know when the snow was on the ground and we were celebrating another holiday with presents- Christmas! Exactly and you know without Christmas and Christ coming to the earth we couldn't have Easter, but well let's see what's in my box!" (With this I let a few of the kids take a really quick peek into the box.) " well what's in there?" child replied "nothing" "what- someone else had better check this out" (so I let another child take a quick peek) "so what's in there?"  "nothing" replied the child. (To this I couldn't believe that someone would give me an empty gift, so I go ahead and open then box and find that it is EMPTY!)  "Why who would give me an EMPTY box? What a dirty trick for someone to play- no chocolate, no baby bunnies, not even a jelly bean!!!" ( I am acting like I am mad, but I change me tune) "Wait a minute, isn't that why we are here to worship today? to celebrate an EMPTY tomb? But who celebrates EMPTY? Do you have a party when the ketchup bottle is EMPTY?  No one would do that? And what do you do when the milk is EMPTY? Complain to someone that we are out of milk. What do you do when the peanut butter is EMPTY? There is no party, or anything so is there anything that we have a party for or celebrate being EMPTY besides the grave of Jesus? (And the kids and the adults thought about this- one child said when the dishwasher was empty- to which I explained that it meant that the dishes were all dirty or someone had gone hungry- the dishwasher doesn't stay empty long and who ever heard of and "Empty Dishwasher Celebration?" One adult said that their bills to be paid bin was empty and I pointed out that so was their checking account- and that isn't a celebration.)

So today , Easter, we celebrate something very special to Christians everywhere- an EMPTY TOMB- which means that our Savior lives!!! Happy Easter! HE Lives!!!! And we closed in prayer.

GPS Resurrection Eggs

I have done this for a couple of years and each year I do it a little bit different, but I take our Resurrection Egg set and go out and hid the eggs in order and mark their location on our handheld GPS unit. Usually something like "Egg 1"- each egg gets it's own waypoint program.  Then I give the boys the GPS and tell them what they are looking for. Each child gets a turn to be the leader and be in "control" of the GPS and when we find the egg- we stop and read the reading that goes with it and open it to see what is inside. Then trade leaders and off to the next egg location. This has provided some good time for discussion about Holy Week and we have even invited others to join us in the hunt for the eggs- which is a great way to share the Easter Story with someone.  Maybe is you have friends that like to geocache- tell them that you are setting up a 12 stop find and then share the waypoints with them- what a fun way to share God's love with  others.

Our Resurrection Egg set is one that my mom made up for my boys years ago and doesn't look exactly like this, but these are available in a variety of locations and work just as well.

So have some fun with your GPS and the Resurrection Egg Set!