This Easter Miss K is 4. Already she is telling me that the Easter bunny will be coming with chocolate eggs – which is not something she has picked up from home… so today we took full advantage of our local churches and descended into the full on Mess of Messy Church.
Good Friday morning we went to Highfield church, which was quite literally full of children. A room filled with about 10 tables of activities to choose from. My hardest job was trying to keep an eye on the toddler boy who was running around as if he had never seen a huge room before… and trying to help Miss K do various crafts. We made an Easter card using Hama beads, we decorated a stone, we played with clay (Miss K made a caterpillar!), made a palm leaf and used biscuits to make a tomb. All very creative and Easter like, giving us a good talking point later on at home.
The church service was well thought out for mums of small ones as it was full of stations to move around and journey through the Easter story, this gave us time to reflect as parents and time for me to explain a little of what was going on. Finally a lunch of pasta, tomato sauce, cheese and ham. Minus the veggies sadly, but mine had veggies as a snack later that day to make up for it 😉 This led to a messy J-boy. A wonderful event that I would certainly not have been able to recreate at home.
Then later in the day we went to Citylife Church, a place where we frequent for playgroup and other groups. This meant I could let the boy off to run around a little more. In fact by the time I had taken off my coat he was sat at a table looking at decorating a cake! I distracted him with paint. Here we decorated Easter cakes, made daffodil Easter cards, made an Easter garden and my favourite – used shaving foam and paint to decorate a paper Easter egg.
This truly was “Messy” church. The service part was very suitable for my small ones and led to Miss K really grasping the Easter story through a video. My boy sat on my lap on the floor and simple pointed to the screen asking for “More”. Bless him.
Coming home tonight in the car Miss K tells me “Mummy it must have hurt Jesus’ hands to be nailed to a cross”. At 4 years old this girl speaks volumes.
Easter in our house does involve Chocolate but it’s more about remembering the man who gave his all for us.
Happy Easter.