Easter at home

He is not there; He is Risen! Amen! Our church had a challenge for everyone to invite one non-Christian to church on Sunday. We don't know that many people yet, so instead, we invited our Islamic neighbors over for Easter lunch. We had to forgo the traditional ham and had grilled chicken with peanut sauce with fried rice instead. I had asked the mom ahead of time if we could give Aya, their 9yr old daughter an Easter basket, and if Aya would like to dye eggs with our boys. Yes to both! Aya, Naila, and Ya Ya arrived first, and the boys had been so very patient, that we opened Easter baskets right away. Thanks so much to Nana for sending so many Easter basket filler that we were able to fully outfit 4 baskets! So, in preparation for wanting to discuss the Christian symbolism associate with the typical Easter things (eggs, bunny, etc), I looked up some things online about how Easter started, and how it turned into a Christian holiday. So I was ready in case they asked any questions about why we claim to celebrate Jesus's rising from the dead and do the "secular" Easter things. I am embarrassed to say that the subject DID come up. The husband started the conversation with "so, do you know what Easter means", and I thought....oh good, I looked it up. What I did NOT do, was start with saying that we celebrate Jesus. So I start giving my little history lesson, and he pushes farther, and I finally get around to saying we are celebrating Jesus raising from the dead. So embarrassing. But he did not seem to notice and we all proceeded in discussing what we believe about Jesus versus what they believe about Jesus. A good discussion.
While the men grilled the food, the boys and Aya dyed eggs. Luckily, Yannick was not particularly interested in the eggs and wanted to go outside and play. That was great, b/c we did use vinegar with the dye and it did stain fingers pretty well. I am not sure Aya has ever dyed eggs before, but she seemed to have a good time. They were nearly done when the food was, so we cleared it all away with 4 eggs left to do later (Art definitely wanted to dye some!). Lunch was delish!! Art's chicken was so yummy - he had marinated it overnight, and the fried rice turned out well. It was the first time I had made it. Then I used some of my red velvet cupcakes I had frozen after my birthday for dessert. They had also brought M&Ms which I put out. she remembered that I love the dark chocolate and brought those. So nice!
Art and I decided ahead of time that we would let the boys skip nap. We did not know what time they were planning on going home, so just to be safe, we had a few things planned. Before we put Yannick down for a nap, we had an Easter Egg hunt with the 4 kids. So fun! Then nick was off to bed, and I had a little sticker craft for the kids. Shortly after that they left to go home. Her sisters were at home - one recuperating from surgery and one taking care of her.
It worked out well that we did not make the boys nap before church, though there ended up being time, because we all got one more egg to dye. I wanted to make mine the prettiest egg, and Art, Z,W wanted to make the ugliest egg. Harder to do than it sounds. Sometimes it goes from ugly to pretty again, which would send the boys into a panic. :) It was a nice time. I won the prettiest egg because I had left mine in the blue dye after lunch. HOWEVER, later in the evening, Zachary stole the title of prettiest egg away from me because he sneakily kept one of his eggs in the blue dye the entire time we were at church!!! Tricky!! After eggs it was time to start getting dressed for church.