Resurrection Rolls

Why do we celebrate Easter? This is a question I have been asking my son and my niece and nephews. I want them to know the reason for the celebration: Jesus resurrection from death! This is no "zombie Jesus" I serve. Jesus is a very real, very alive, very conquering King of All! I want to be sure that my kids know the reason we celebrate Easter isn't about the Easter bunny and the candy and the egg hunts, but about our Savior, Jesus Christ. So, I found this great idea on Pinterest to teach them about Christ while also letting them enjoy some crafting and fun. Resurrection Rolls. 

Photo from Pinterest

There were a few different blogs I discovered on Pinterest, but I really liked the specific blog linked above that gave scripture to read at certain points of the baking/preparation process. 

We started by reading John 19. My nephew has been reading up a storm and was very excited to do the reading for us, so I had him read a bit and then I finished off the chapter.

 

The two younger littles quickly got distracted and a little bored, but after we read the normal Bible, I read the same story in a kids' Bible and that held their attention a little better. After we read the story, we prepared the marshmallow (symbolizing Jesus) and buried it in the crescent rolls (symbolizing the tomb). All of the kids were able to help with rolling the marshmallows in the butter, cinnamon and sugar, but I had to help them, so I was only able to get a picture of the older two preparing them.

After all of the rolls were prepared, we stuck them in the oven and read another passage - the story of Jesus RESURRECTION in John 20:1-18. We did a lot of explaining during that time so that the little ones would understand a little better the amazing, awesome sacrifice that Jesus went through for us and the absolutely thrilling, incredible miracle it was that He came back to life! 

When the rolls were all done, I pulled them out of the oven and noticed the "Jesus" mallows seemed to ooze out a bit, but "he" was gone from the inside of the roll, which is what the goal was, so it still worked out. ;)

We waited about 5 minutes for the rolls to cool. The kids were very excited to eat them, so they tried to rush the process by cooling them down on their own.

Once they got to dig in, they saw for themselves that Jesus had, indeed, rose and was no longer in the tomb. They each wanted me to take a picture of them making the discovery, so here they are.

My oldest nephew, Gabriel, added a couple of ideas of things that were being represented as we worked on rolls. Very creative thinking for my little guy, so I thought I'd share. 

1) When we were opening the package of crescent rolls, we hit them on the counter to open them - Gabe said he thought that should represent the abuse and beating that Jesus received.

2) While the rolls were in the hot oven, Gabe said that should represent Hell. Jesus went to Hell and back for us - literally. So the hot oven seemed like a good representation of that. 

I feel like he had one or two more other ideas of things that were being represented, but I don't remember what they were now. Either way, it may have been morbid - but I was proud of him for finding more representations for what had happened to Jesus.

The rolls were incredible. They tasted a bit like small cinnamon rolls - maybe even just the middle of a really tasty cinnamon roll. They were very tasty. A Bible Story and a tasty treat at the end; that is my kind of lesson. :)

Today, when Cade woke up, we told him it was Easter and asked him if he knew what it meant. He got the gist...kind of. He told us "Jesus died and was a marshmallow and we rolled it [in cinnamon and sugar] ..." and then we prodded "and then????" He didn't have much of an answer beyond that. So, we had the opportunity to, again, tell him that our precious Lord and Savior rose again - conquering death for all eternity for any who would accept and believe! A metaphorical story using marshmallows for a 3-year-old may be a bit much to grasp, but he retained most of it, so I think we will make this an ongoing tradition. It blesses my heart to tell my kids this story and have them begin to understand and get it. 

Happy Easter, my friends. He is risen! He is risen, indeed! May God bless you richly.

Hardboiled Eggs

A friend of mine requested (a year ago around Easter) that I do a blog post about a Pinterest test on hardboiled eggs in the oven.

Photo from Pinterest

So, I gave it a shot, but I never posted about it because I couldn't get it done before Easter. Thankfully, I'm getting to it (barely) before this Easter. ;)

I started out with my eggs in the oven and then I remembered to put a baking sheet underneath of them, thankfully. The blog post linked above says that you should put the baking sheet underneath in case any of your egg shells break.

Some of the egg shells did, in fact, break. This was a tad messier than I expected it to be. As you can see from the baking sheet, a little more than just the shell came off of a few of them, and some of them lost a big chunk of their shell.

Still, it worked out. The eggs didn't look all that pretty, but they tasted just as good as if they had been boiled. For some reason, they all ended up with a little brown spot on them, and I'm not sure why. As far as being aesthetically pleasing, I think these are definitely better for just eating. You won't be able to color these eggs. But, if you are looking for a way to make a bunch of hardboiled eggs at the same time, this seems like a good option....as long as you don't care if they are pretty at the end.

Hope this was helpful for someone. Sorry for the shortness of this post. It was so long ago, I had to recall the results and don't feel like I can give quite the rundown that I would've liked for this. But, it's done! My post has been completed. :)

Fun Ways To Decorate Easter Eggs With Kids

I haven't dyed Easter eggs in so long. I was very much looking forward to picking up that old tradition again with my son and my nephew. I didn't actually want to go buy the egg dyeing kits though...thankfully, I saw all kinds of ideas on Pinterest for decorating Easter eggs, so this is a sampling of the ideas we tried recently.

To see where we got these great Easter egg decorating ideas, check out this blog.

Photo from Pinterest

The two designs we tried were the melted crayons and the tie dye. The melted crayons was way fun and easy and my 2 year old son could even participate in that! That made it extra cool. Both my 8-year-old nephew and my 2-year-old son enjoyed it!! WOOHOO! Success!

 

The biggest tip I can give you is to make sure the kids don't touch the eggs themselves as the eggs are VERY hot. After I dried them, I put them in the egg carton so the kiddos could start coloring. That seemed to work brilliantly, until one side was done - then flipping them over was a bit of a challenge. For that, I used tongs. I used my hand the first time and ended up with melted crayon dried onto my skin - plus, they were still very warm. The boys were very good about not touching the eggs with anything but the crayons though and it worked wonderfully.

Gabriel, personally, preferred the tie-dyed eggs. They were, in my opinion, not quite as much kid-friendly work though. Dropping the food coloring onto a paper towel I had to do, but the boys got to squirt the vinegar/water solution and I think that's what Gabe really enjoyed.

I set the eggs on the paper towels because they were still very hot. Then, we wrapped them up and put them in a plastic bag for more than an hour.

The end result was pretty neat looking. Not so much on the hands - so watch out for that - if you are hoping to have nice looking hands for pictures or something in the next hour, you'll be severely disappointed; be prepared for some stainage...for a little while anyway.

So, our eggs may have looked a little better if we hadn't used brown eggs, but I still think they look mighty fine. And it was an enjoyable time had by all. Success? I think, yes.