Today was the annual Easter egg hunt at our new church, St. John's Methodist. Of course, since we've only been attending St. John's since Advent, this was our first year to do the egg hunt. I had several thoughts on the event and most of them were in contrast to the Easter egg hunts at the church I grew up in (Sunset Methodist). All of my memories of the egg hunts at Sunset were as the pre-teen and teenager hiding the eggs for the little kids. We didn't join Sunset until I was eight and the church we went to prior to that had very few kids, so no real egg hunt. It makes me so glad that we found St. John's as early as we did. Sydney will grow up remembering the egg hunt from all angles... as the little kid who hunts eggs on the playground to the middle sized kid who is too big for the playground egg hunt (and honestly, I have no idea where the elementary aged kids went), to being the pre-teen or teenager helping out with hiding eggs or helping little kids with the craft ahead of time. I had wondered if we made the right decision, leaving the church Sydney was baptized in, Cross and Crown, who had been so very good to us, in search of a church with more children's activities. This Easter egg hunt just affirms that for me. Easter will be a more special time of year for her because of her memories of the children's activities and that makes me happy.
Speaking of memories... Sydney must have held on to some memories of last year's egg hunt, because this year she immediately opened every egg, knowing that good things would be inside. Of course, most of the candy was the tootsie roll, or caramel kind that are a little too chewy for her, so an older kid got a nice donation of candy from Sydney while she wasn't looking. (For everyone who now feels sorry for Sydney not having any candy... we did find a single KitKat which she ate and after the egg hunt, I went and bought her some jelly beans.)
This is the paper flower cross that the children helped to make prior to the egg hunt. Each color flower represents a different part of the story of Jesus from Psalm Sunday through the Resurrection. The children made the flowers and then as the children's director told the story, she had the kids bring up the color of flower that represented that portion.
After the egg hunt, we had our church friends over. Sydney loves playing with Emelia, Abigail, and Sean. Here, Emelia showed Sydney that there is a rope swing in the corner of the backyard. Sydney thought that was really cool -- even though she can't swing as well as Emelia just yet. I thought it was funny that it took some other child coming over to show Sydney something new in her own backyard.
All the kids really enjoyed Sydney's playhouse (yay! $50 house!). Here are Abigail and Sean. At different points, all four kids were in the house and playing. They also really liked the sand table and the cars we have in the backyard (although the cars got to be a lot less fun when the dads annouced that they were too tired to keep pushing kids around).
Our final event for the afternoon was making Easter egg shaped cookies. Really, it was pre-cut dough from Pillsbury and all the girls did was put the eggs on the cookie sheet, but they enjoyed the idea of making cookies, and a mere eight minutes later, everyone had a cookie and then went to take a nice long nap.
Speaking of memories... Sydney must have held on to some memories of last year's egg hunt, because this year she immediately opened every egg, knowing that good things would be inside. Of course, most of the candy was the tootsie roll, or caramel kind that are a little too chewy for her, so an older kid got a nice donation of candy from Sydney while she wasn't looking. (For everyone who now feels sorry for Sydney not having any candy... we did find a single KitKat which she ate and after the egg hunt, I went and bought her some jelly beans.)
This is the paper flower cross that the children helped to make prior to the egg hunt. Each color flower represents a different part of the story of Jesus from Psalm Sunday through the Resurrection. The children made the flowers and then as the children's director told the story, she had the kids bring up the color of flower that represented that portion.
After the egg hunt, we had our church friends over. Sydney loves playing with Emelia, Abigail, and Sean. Here, Emelia showed Sydney that there is a rope swing in the corner of the backyard. Sydney thought that was really cool -- even though she can't swing as well as Emelia just yet. I thought it was funny that it took some other child coming over to show Sydney something new in her own backyard.
All the kids really enjoyed Sydney's playhouse (yay! $50 house!). Here are Abigail and Sean. At different points, all four kids were in the house and playing. They also really liked the sand table and the cars we have in the backyard (although the cars got to be a lot less fun when the dads annouced that they were too tired to keep pushing kids around).
Our final event for the afternoon was making Easter egg shaped cookies. Really, it was pre-cut dough from Pillsbury and all the girls did was put the eggs on the cookie sheet, but they enjoyed the idea of making cookies, and a mere eight minutes later, everyone had a cookie and then went to take a nice long nap.
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