“Is it? It is! He’s coming! He’s coming! The Easter Beagle is coming!”
Awe, Linus. I so relate to your unbridled enthusiasm for the holidays. Linus to me is somehow fully a child and adult at the same time, which is honestly how I feel myself most of the time.
I have always loved holidays, but my favorite traditions and celebrations are made all the more precious now, as I see them reflected back in the jubilant, wonder-filled eyes of our children.
I’m guessing you know what I mean, mamas and papas! So, today, I am happy to share with you three posts outlining our family’s very favorite Easter rituals!
I hope that these traditions may enrich your family’s Easter celebrations as they have enriched ours! If you enjoy this post, please hop to it and share with somebunny! 😆 You will truly make our day, and you may even make theirs!
Hop into Easter with Our Family’s Favorite Festivities!
~HOMEMADE EASTER CANDY TUTORIAL~ 3 ingredient Gummies + 4 ingredient Chocolate Date “Snickers” Eggs!
You’d think being called “Candy” for half of my life would somehow have given me some special confectioner’s power. No such luck.
Having my dad sing “Oh sugar, honey, honey, you are my Candy Girl” as he dropped me off at the bus stop in High School each morning may have been sweet (and also embarrassing) but it apparently had no effect on my sugar-skills. In fact, my first candy-making efforts closely resembled that of Lucy Ricardo’s.
It was the Halloween before last that my son and I first decided to try making our own homemade, from-scratch, organic, healthy, and delicious Halloween candy. Easy, right? Boy was I a sucker to think it would be, at least on the first try.
The gummies were too . . . gummy.
The chocolates were too . . . lumpy.
The kitchen was a mess . . . and so was I.
Candy Girl indeed.
And yet, somehow we had enough fun and our candy was tasty *enough* that we decided to give it another go at Christmas. The sugar-plum fairy must have sprinkled some magic powdered sugar dust down on us because things went much better. With a tweak in our gelatin ratio, our gummies were perfectly gummy (although still lacked a little on flavor but we’ll get to that), and our chocolate-“snickers” were to die for!
By Valentines Day, we had it down! And by Easter we were feeling as smug as the “Candy Man” himself 😆 !
Finally, we had hacked the last gummy conundrum (homemade fruit juice plus a good strong punch of citric acid was the golden ticket for full flavor). And so . . . we entirely skipped the candy aisle last Easter and made two batches of gummies plus a batch of chocolate date “snickers” eggs, photographing along the way! Thankfully, we already mucked through the sticky pitfalls of candy-making so you don’t have to!
Candy-making in our house is now super easy and fun; something we do and look forward to every holiday! This Candy Girl “just can’t believe it’s true.”
Click here for our recipes and free tutorials!
Our Family’s Favorite ~BUNNY BOOKS~ for a Hopping Easter! Updated with Five New Hare-Raising Titles!
What could be a better way to foster a love of reading in our children than making BOOKS front and center in all our holidays and celebrations?
Every turn of the season, I bring out that magical plastic bin where we store special holiday books. Each is only displayed on the shelf for a few weeks every year, and yet are some of the most cherished of our family library. Our kids LOVE this tradition. It’s like reuniting with dear, old friends. And absence certainly makes the heart grow fonder when it comes to books. I also like to splurge and buy a few new holiday books each season to add to the growing collection. I often wrap the new books and give them to the kids as a gift leading up to the next holiday. For Easter, I love wrapping them and putting a scavenger hunt together for an early Easter hunt. An Easter basket brimming with beautiful books is just too lovely for me to resist 😆 !
So, I invite you to join us in making books a central part of all our holidays! I’ve put together a few lists of our favorite BUNNY BOOKS sorted by age group to get you started for Easter. I even have two spooky bunny chapter books and one with a dragon listed for the 7-10 age group . . . you know, the kids who are too cool for cute little bunnies!
PLUS: I’ve included links for audiobook versions, sing-along songs, free ebook versions, and Amazon links!
Click here to view all our bunny books by age group + all the freebie links mentioned above!
I-Have-Hidden-Your-Word-in-My-Heart ~EASTER HYMNS~ for Little Lungs and Eager Ears!
There’s a lot of fluff at Easter . . . especially on the back side of the Easter Bunny. No, I’m not here to hate on the Easter Bunny! Don’t worry, ole Long Ears and I are on good terms. But I don’t think Resurrection Sunday should all be bunny-butt fluff, if you know what I mean. Especially when it comes to our kids and what we are trying to instill within them. That’s what today’s post is about.
Some years back, I was listening to a sermon about hymns and the preacher likened today’s worship songs to cake, and the hymns of old to brussels sprouts. “There’s nothing wrong with cake” he said. “But we don’t sustain ourselves on cake. Every so often, we need to eat our brussels sprouts.” I like where he was going. Except . . . he could have picked a better vegetable! I think it’s safe to say that almost every child on the planet despises brussels sprouts. But children do not despise hymns! In fact, some of my earliest and fondest memories are sitting in my mom’s lap as she played hymn after hymn on the piano at our church. So . . . for today’s purposes, let’s swap out brussels with . . . say . . . carrots. Nutritious, delicious, and even bunny-friendly!
With all of this in mind, I have prepared a sort of carrot-cake Easter playlist to listen to with our kids this holiday weekend. I’ve even snapped a few pictures of our family’s favorite Easter hymns if you’re crazy cool and read music or play the piano.
Join me in dedicating ourselves to raising up our children in sound wisdom and strong morals and focusing all our holiday celebrations on what truly matters!
Let’s not let the heart of Easter pass our kids by in a wave of holiday hoopla!
Let’s read the Easter story to our children . . . maybe more than once!
Let’s grow a Resurrection Garden together.
And let’s fill our ears, hearts, and lungs with songs to our risen Savior!
Click here for our list of Resurrection Hymns + Playlist link!
Happy Easter! Thanks for reading, dear friends!
Love, ~Our Holistic Homeschool~
