Easter in the Age of Covid

Easter looked a little different this year with social distancing going on, but we were able to have a memorable and enjoyable time at home with our little fam and some virtual visits with extended fam.  We still had eggs and hunts and a feast and learned about the Resurrection; it was just all an "at home" version.  And it was actually really beautiful.

We started off Easter Week with a family home evening from the Friend about some symbols of Easter (our Friend magazine came just in time!  I was wondering where it was, and about an hour before dinner we checked the mail and it had finally come!).  The activity for the evening was the much-anticipated egg dying!

All week I enjoyed studying the Come Follow Me lesson about Easter with Gregg in the evenings, listening to my fave Don't Miss This podcast episode about Easter, and reading each day's events from my old favorite Holy Week study guide from institute with Sister Whitesides.

On Saturday morning, before it got too cold and rainy in the afternoon, we set up an Easter egg hunt in the yard for the ever-eager kiddos.  We hid the 13 hard boiled and dyed eggs that were left from Monday (Sam ate one of his earlier in the week that he had dropped on the floor during the dying process), 6 large plastic eggs, 25 small plastic egg, and one "bonus" mini plastic egg (that one didn't have any candy, but it was fun to hide anyway).  The kids were great hunters and we only temporarily "lost" one of the candy-filled eggs for a few minutes.

Since we weren't able to have our regularly scheduled Easter brunch and egg hunt at Grandpa and Grandma Blanchard's house, they texted me a few weeks before to find out what books the kids would enjoy from Amazon.  I sent them my recommendations and they had the books shipped directly to us.  I hid them and then wrapped them and the kids got to open them with Gma and Gpa over Skype after they hunted for eggs.  That was a fun surprise!

They are SO ready!

It was kinda fun to hide eggs in our big, gnarly
yard!

It's four Heidi Hecklebeck books in one!
(She's read every one from our library
multiple times, but I was so happy to see that the
titles in this collection were not any that she has
read before!)  She finished the entire 400+ pages
that afternoon!

Ask Sam anything about dinos, I dare ya!
(He checks out books like this from the library
whenever we go (which has not been for a while,
obviously) so he was in heaven to have his
very own copy of a nonfiction dinosaur fact book!)

Callie made us egg salad sandwiches for lunch . . .
ALL BY HERSELF!!

On Sunday, we had a short and sweet (the best kind!) of "home church" and Callie and Sam taught the Easter morning story using cutouts from the Friend that Grandma Elwood had mailed to the kids on Friday (perfect timing!).  Gregg and I have commented every week how much we love these home church sessions - they're simple and don't last very long, but we really get to focus on the Sacrament and talk about what it means with the kids every Sunday.  It has become really meaningful and sweet.  We watched The Tabernacle Choir broadcast and then decided to cut into our carrot cake before dinner to do a little spreading of Easter cheer.  We dropped a plate of cake at our neighbor's house and then surprised Paul and Kim with a plate of cake on their doorstep.  They let the kids cut a couple tulips from their flower bed for our dinner table centerpiece and we had a quick visit on the front lawn (at a socially acceptable distance).

When we got home we had a fun Zoom call with all the Elwood clan - it was so nice to see everyone's face on one screen.  (Not as nice as all being in one room, but I definitely am grateful for the technology during this crazy time!)

Tada!

I thought I was snapping a screen shot while everyone was
visible, but I think Ev and Bradley were off gallivanting somewhere
so they missed my snap.  Oh well, I did get a lucky click to have
Gracie giving Cooper a kiss!

I had received a free turkey with a $100 purchase at Thanksgiving time at Winco and it has been taking up space in our freezer for months.  I was ready to get it out of there and decided it could be kind of fun to roast it for Easter dinner. I toyed with the idea of doing a full-on Thanksgiving spread, but kept dreaming of the more traditional Easter sides that I was really craving.  So we had turkey with asparagus, honey garlic roasted carrots, rolls, funeral potatoes (my grandma's recipe with shredded hashbrowns and cream o' soup and corn flakes on top) and deviled eggs (Gregg whipped those up with no real "recipe").  And of course our ultimate carrot cake for dessert!  It was a marvelous feast!

Firsts for us: my first time roasting a turkey
and Gregg's first time carving one.

I don't know why my rolls got so dark on the bottoms, but
they were still edible and delicious.

After dinner we had another scheduled Hangout with the BlanchHerd.  It turned out that only us and Paul and Kim actually showed up, but we had a good visit with them and Sam was so tired he conked out on Gregg's lap!  It has been a LONG time since he's fallen asleep in our arms!  Poor sleepy guy!

Look at those lashes!

It wasn't typical, but it was special.  And I'm certainly grateful that He is Risen!