He is Risen

No time for blogging is obviously a sign of a busy and fun weekend! And now to play catch up!

Thursday we enjoyed attending Mr. T’s preschool Easter festivities and also celebrating his birthday with pirate cupcakes! I didn’t get a picture of them… but after looking everywhere for pirate cupcake toppers that weren’t ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ scary, I printed off small jolly roger flags and glued them to tooth picks which we inserted into each cupcake. They turned out pretty cute, but I had to laugh as the children were presented with skulls after having a very Christian Easter celebration!

We have Mr. T attending a Christian preschool and really have loved every minute of it. His teachers are fabulous and just the most loving people you could imagine. The activities, crafts and learning activities he is engaging in are beyond what I could have expected for what we are paying and the short two mornings a week he spends there. Yes, they pray, they attend chapel once a month, they share bible stories in class and the children are consistently reminded to treat others as Jesus would. Nothing wrong with that… we love that our little guy is learning about religion and our Savior in another place besides home and church. As parents we are fairly involved and are constantly signing up to help with different activities and all the many parties! For the Easter celebration Mr. Man signed us up to help with a craft. It was pretty basic: the teacher gave us some crosses and wanted us to get some necklace rope and make necklaces for each of the children. She thought it would be pretty special for each of the children to be able to wear a cross and understand that it represented Christ. Mr. Man brought home this project for us to complete and thus ensued a discussion. Being Mormon, we don’t focus on the sign of the cross – we don’t have crosses on our churches, nor do we wear crosses around our necks. Instead of thinking about the cruel way in which our Savior was killed, we choose to dwell on the fact that He lives, that He was resurrected and has provided the way for us to live again. Ultimately, we decided that we were uncomfortable with Mr. T having to wear a cross – that it was the first time something at his school somewhat clashed with our beliefs. However, we didn’t want him to feel completely left out either, so we decided to make him a different necklace, one that portrayed the resurrected Christ. On the back of our Friend magazine was the perfect picture. We copied it onto cardstock, double sided, laminated it and then punched holes to turn it into a necklace. We made the rest of the crosses as we had signed up to do and the next day when Mr. Man drove our little guy to preschool he explained to his teacher our reasons for making this “alternate” necklace.Mr. Man reported to me that this was the longest conversation he has ever had with Mr. T’s teacher… and in the end, she explained how much that picture conveyed to her, that her husband (at age 49) had passed away of a heart attack just ten months previously and she had never seen a picture like this that brought such hope and emotion. She asked if we would get her a copy of the picture.

Later when I picked Mr. T up from school we spoke also, and in the end she asked if I would mind making a necklace like Mr. T’s for the rest of the children. She thought this picture would help them understand the true meaning of Easter even more than wearing the cross would. Of course we did. We ordered a large picture for his teacher (Mr. Man even spoke with the artist, Del Parson’s wife on the phone!) When we went in for the celebration it was pretty special to see all these children wearing this beautiful picture. (Now we want to get one for our home.) But it was also special to see how happy Mr. T was to be sharing Jesus with all his little friends. Truly this is what Easter is all about, and I am forever grateful to our Savior Jesus Christ for paving the way and leading us back home so that I can be together forever with my little family.