Tree of Life Mothering

I hope to extend the Easter season with a few more activities from now till Pentecost, but here is a recap of what 2026 Easter-themed events happened in my life up through Easter Sunday, 4/5/26.

I learned about extending the Easter season until Pentecost, which is 50 days after Easter (May 24 this year) from Lani Hilton. So whatever I didn’t do before and on Easter, I hope to do after.

One of the best things that happened for my Easter celebration so far this year is that I found my Gospel Art Kit, which was missing last year, as I blogged here. Hooray! So I made my timeline of Holy Week events with the pictures from the New Testament section of that kit, just as I have for many years. See above.

I also had so much fun decorating my front room window ledges for Easter. As I took down books to read aloud from, and added new books, the look kept shifting.

Speaking of books, here are a few that I’ve been enjoying reading aloud with my son for Morning Basket for the Easter season. We didn’t finish by Easter Sunday so will continue to enjoy them and hopefully finish this spring. A homeschooling girlfriend gave me the one above, and the rest I found all at DI, in the past few years since I moved back to UT from AZ. The ones from DI all looked like new, never used, and were $1 each. It is amazing what you can find thrifting!

This one tells the stories behind Easter eggs, egg hunts, the Easter bunny, new clothes for Easter and so much more.

I love anything by Brad Wilcox. He has such a gift for explaining things.

The one below is historical fiction, about the faith journey of one of the shepherds who beheld the angels announcing Christ’s birth.

I found two copies of the one below, one in softcover and one in hardcover. I remember hearing about this book at a homeschooling conference done by Joyce Kimont over 25 years ago. I’m finally reading it. I enjoy reading the words of a real live shepherd and how Jesus is our true shepherd.

For the children’s class that I’m in charge of at the homeschooling co-op we attend, I read aloud the two books below. I’m still figuring out how to incorporate the reading aloud of the first one for my family’s celebration, for next year. I just might make a video of me reading each section and send it to my adult children and my grandchildren to watch and encourage them to do the activity on their own for that day. Or read it on Palm Sunday with whatever grandchildren are with me and talk about each activity like I did with the co-op children. This year I read it on Easter Sunday and crammed it into our celebration with too many other thins. I wish I had done it earlier.

This one above has gorgeous art on every page. It goes through the alphabet and mentions something to do with Easter that starts with each letter.

On the Saturday before Palm Sunday, we attended our BYU-attending son’s ballet performance. We had front-row seats. He was in three numbers. I always wanted to be a ballerina so to see my older daughter take ballet and then get en pointe (when she was a teen), and now one of my sons progress in ballet just thrills my heart. He was in two of the numbers with much of the company, and then he got to do a pas de deux. So beautiful!

Here he is in the pas de deux. (I got the photo from the BYU Theater Ballet’s Facebook page, so credit goes to the Theater Ballet Dept. for the photo.)

That same day, after the ballet we attended our ward/congregation’s Easter party, then we attended a local Easter concert for our church that involved two stakes, ours and one other. (A stake is a collection of congregations, about 6-8). It was so lovely. I learned a new Easter song, “Lord of the Dance.” The tune is from “Simple Gifts” and the lyrics are about Jesus dancing, even on Good Friday. That part says “it’s hard to dance with the devil on your back.” (Lyrics are here.) My friend Delsa who is super musically talented played this song on the piano with James Welch on the organ for a piano/organ duet. It was amazing!

Here is the basic music.

Here is one line from the song: “They buried my body and they thought I had gone… But I am the dance and still go on.” Yes, yes, yes!!!! The Lord still goes on! He is risen, He is alive! He dances! He appeared to Joseph Smith, established his ancient church through Joseph Smith, which exists in these latter-days as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He continues to dance with each one of us, as much as we let Him. I just love this song to remind that He is the dance. Another name for Christ!

Here is a video I found that I think is the same piano/organ duet I witnessed. So incredibly beautiful!

On Palm Sunday we attended a lovely Easter service/sacrament meeting for church. Our church held its Easter service on Palm Sunday because General Conference was being held the next week. I sang the song below with the ward choir. Our director, Delsa, who I just mentioned, told us later that people told her we sounded like the Tabernacle Choir!

The bishop (leader of our ward/church congregation) has started a new tradition in our ward for Palm Sunday. He grew up Catholic, so he grew up having real palm fronds on Palm Sunday. He chose to get baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when he was in college. He likes to have the Young Men and Young Women in the ward pass out palm fronds as we leave sacrament meeting as a nod to Palm Sunday and his Catholic upbringing. It was so wonderful this year that there was no Primary after the sacrament service with the little children are riled up, poking each other with the palm fronds. That is what happened last year.

We had dinner with extended family and acted out an Easter Play, using the script found here. It starts with the Palm Sunday scene. It was so cute that for the Last Supper scene, my five-year-old grandson went and got cups of water to serve one to each person. He was being so thoughtful and engaged and serving, doing it all without any prompting from anybody.

Then we played Easter Charades. I had made this play doh/cloud doh out of conditioner and corn starch. It seemed perfect when I left the house. But by the time I opened the lid to it, a few hours later, after dinner, it was all crumbly. I appreciated the fact that my grandsons weren’t critical and played with it anyway. We took turns pulling a plastic egg from a basket, reading the clue on a piece of paper inside, and either acting it out or sculpturing it in the play doh. The words were words having to do with the temple, to go with Cleansing Temple Monday, or the parables Jesus taught, on Teaching Tuesday, both from Holy Week. I got this idea from the book below. My review of the book is here.

On Palm Sunday night, BYU hosted a Palm Sunday devotional service, part of A Journey to Easter. I watched that via livestreaming and my son and husband attended. The kitchen was such a disaster from prepping for our Palm Sunday dinner and the play doh for Easter charades that I wanted to clean up it up before 9 PM. If I had gone to the service we would have been cleaning it up after 9. I enjoyed watching the livestream while I worked and then slipping into my PJs and resting to watch it before they got home. I think I’ll just buy play doh from the dollar store next year! I have failed at play doh two years in a row for Easter Charades. I’ll save so much time and money just getting it at the dollar store, even if it’s one of the things at the store that’s not actually $1.25, like the deceptive chocolate bunnies available there.

During Holy Week, we spent each day during our scripture reading before bedtime reading the scriptures associated with that day, as listed in the Holy Week book above. We also watched the associated videos. I read aloud the Cactus and Cross story by Elder Holland on one of the nights.

Tuesday we decorated eggs. My married daughter got the idea to use food grade markers, as shown above. This made decorating so much easier than using dye!

I will be doing this method again for sure! It was so much easier to do details using markers then dye. While we decorated, I had a wonderful time discussing with my daughter and son-in-law the book my daughter and I had just discussed the day before in Zoom for the Shumway Sisters’ Book Club. (Skylight Confessions, btw, a horrible book.) It was fun to see my grandsons decorate their eggs and talk with them too.

Every day in Holy Week, I played at least one Easter song on the piano using my new binder of Easter-themed music. Go here to see my list with links so you can print the music too and assemble a binder. So far my favorite song is “Long Ago Within a Garden.”

On Good Friday, I went thrifting for Easter basket gifts. As I shared over here, my goal was to get at least one nonedible treat per person for my husband, children, son-in-law, and grandchildren who would be with me for Easter Sunday dinner and egg hunt. (Two of my married children live out of town so wouldn’t be there. One is on a mission. So that left four of my children.) This gift would be wrapped, then labeled with a number. Then I put numbers on little pieces of paper and put them in plastic eggs. The numbers in the eggs matched the numbers on the gifts. Then if people got what they didn’t want they could trade.

My thrifting angels were actively helping me that afternoon! I found so much great stuff, mostly books. See above and below. I ended up with at least two things tailored to each person’s reading tastes. Then I also got a tiny game for each grandson and the Jane Austen puzzle shown below for my married daughter. The same one I found back in March for me!

I couldn’t believe that there it was again, in the afternoon, and hadn’t already been snatched up. One of my fellow customers saw it in my cart and congratulated me for the find. I said it was for my daughter and she said, “Oh, you’re such a great mom, I miss my mom getting stuff for me.” It was so pleasant to have a kindred spirit thrifter Jane-ite share in my thrifting joy.

Then I went to Dollar Tree and got wind-up bunnies for my grandsons (and truth be told, one for me). Dollar Tree had several non-junky items. I resisted buying bubbles because none of the containers were non-spillable. I just have too many mom years behind me to know that bubble wands in containers that can be spilled are less than desirable.

and crystal putty contained in colored plastic Easter eggs for the four youngest members of the group, minus the 7 month old baby grandson. In other words, my two youngest children, and and my two oldest grandchildren got the crystal putty.

(I also got a few other things just for me at DI, as shown above and below. I was thrilled to find the three books in the top of the photo above and the snowflakes book to use for my New Year’s/Valentine’s/Hygge reading enjoyment and decorations next year, as shown in Point #4 over here. I also got a cute T-shirt with a heart image made out of flowers. I wore it with a cream-colored skirt and cream sweater on Easter Sunday. And Cold Sassy Tree, which I am reading for my Sisters’ Book Club this month, and another Reader’s Digest Songbook, and a pitcher…OK, I will have to detail all this stuff later when I do a spring thrift haul post.)

I went for all this shopping on Good Friday. In future years I hope to do something together as a family on Good Friday and not go shopping, but to have it all done before Good Friday, just as it is ideal to have all my Christmas shopping done way before Christmas Eve. I heard it confirmed in one of my Holy Week YouTube videos that I binged on during the week, that the Utah State Legislature passed a bill this winter to make Good Friday a state holiday starting in 2027. I’m super excited about this!

The Winnie-the-Pooh game I found at the Springville DI with this cute dress and the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory book, shown above. In the ten minutes between arriving and the store closing I found three little treasures. This was right before I had to get to my son’s band show. I got the Charlie book, The Moffats, and and The Great Brain book, shown above, both chapter books, for my oldest grandson. He’s not quite into chapter books but hopefully if one of us start reading one of these to him, it will motivate him to pick it up on his own. My daughter said he’s into graphic novels so I got him the Action Storybook Bible and the graphic novel about a Chinese American boy.

I wanted an Easter dress, and the above was the best thing I could find in my limited time. Not fancy, and the goldenrod yellow color is more for fall than spring, so I’m not really calling it an Easter dress. It will be fun to wear in the summer with my gold sandals, and in the fall with black leggings and ankle boots. Like I mentioned earlier, I ended up wearing the T-shirt with the flowery heart shown four photos above and a cream sweater and cream skirt on Easter. The Winnie-the-Pooh game made my heart skip a beat, because it’s more of the classic style of E.H. Shepard instead of the Disney style. I knew I could give it to one of my grandsons and my daughter would be over the moon about it because she had a Winnie-the-Pooh baby shower last summer.

The box it came in was beat up though, with some rips and tatters. I figured I could find a Winnie bag to replace the box the next day at Daiso.

On Saturday, we watched General Conference. In between sessions I went to Daiso in search of a Winnie-the-Pooh bag for the matching game. I found one! Look how cute it is! Here it is below with all the cards stuffed inside.

I wasn’t going to go to the Orem Savers, along with Daiso, on the GC halftime break (noon to 2 PM), after spending so much the day before at two DIs, I really wasn’t. I felt a prompting, however, on Saturday, telling me to go, to get one more book for one of the family members. Look what I found, below! All 7 volumes of Narnia in one book!

With my coupon it was $3.19! It’s a bit worn but I had been looking for Narnia, Tolkien, and Hunger Games books for Easter basket gifts. I never did find any Tolkien. I found Hunger Games vol. 2 and 3 but not Vol. 1. I wanted all three so I didn’t get Vol 2 and 3. It was all or nothing. I found one Harry Potter volume but it was beat up. So to find this Narnia book was such a satisfying thrill. It was so surprising that I could find all 7 in 1! I didn’t even know such a thing existed! My BYU attending son ended up getting it at the hunt. I was bummed that the evil White Witch takes center stage on the front cover but at least, 1. She’s not looking happy or right in our eyes, and 2. Aslan is on the spine, looks regal, and is looking right into our eyes. It pairs well the Narnia trivia book I found thrifting last month.

Saturday evening after conference we flew kites after a picnic supper at the park with my married daughter and her family of husband and 3 little boys.

My son-in-law, shown below, was the best at getting either kite to fly the highest and longest. He fell in love with flying kites! Just in the week since, they have gone kite flying a second time and bought a much bigger kite that is supposed to be easier for children to fly.

This is a new annual Shumway family tradition for Easter, for sure. I had heard about it as a tradition people do for Easter in Bermuda. My married daughter and I thought it would be great to get the family outdoors after being inside watching Conference, on Easter Eve. We had just enough wind. I love that both kites, the one I bought, and the one my daughter bought, were butterflies. Butterflies and kites are such great symbols of the risen Lord. My purple butterfly kite is on the top, in the photo below, so high and hard to see. Then my daughter’s is the orange kite below it.

I also bought these bookmarks, on Good Friday, in PDF form from an etsy seller. I had mentioned looking at them in etsy over here. I sent them to a print shop to be printed on glossy cardstock. They turned out so beautiful! Then I tucked one each in the thrifted books I got for Easter gifts. They are Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and Anne of Green Gables themed. I put the one with the green door in the grilling book for my son-in-law, because my daughter and her husband have a Hobbit theme going on at their house. She bought him a door just like that for an interior home decoration as a Christmas gift.

On Saturday night, we attempted to watch Narnia like we did for Easter last year but couldn’t get it to work. Instead, I watched this video below, while I wrapped some of the Easter gifts. My son watched Narnia at one of his friend’s houses, and my husband watched Blue Bloods, his favorite show after Relative Race.

On Easter Sunday I got up early because I couldn’t sleep any more, around 5:30. During the previous weeks, I had thought about getting up early to go to the cemetery where my inlaws are buried and see the sunrise with those in my family who wanted to go. My neighbor had said in church that that cemetery has a cross monument, which used to be in our neighborhood and got moved. So I thought it would be so cool to walk to the cross and see the sunrise, then walk to my inlaws’ gravestones and share testimonies that they will be resurrected because Jesus was. But the night before, at 11, I decided I was too exhausted and wanted to sleep in. So I texted all my children involved that I didn’t want to go anymore. Then I ended up waking at 5:30 anyway. Oh well. It was just as well because my married daughter said her baby woke her up at 2:30 and stayed awake for two hours, so she would not have gone either.

I was greeted that early morning by the best Easter surprise ever, next to the resurrection of Jesus. My second son had sent a text with a picture of his wife holding my first granddaughter! After four grandsons, I have a granddaughter! She had been born early that Easter Sunday morning! They live out of state so I have yet to cuddle the baby. I will get to do so next month when I fly out to visit them. A granddaughter for Easter!!!!! I had already bought some gifts for her on my thrifting trip last month, including the cute robe above.

I attempted to watch the sunrise from my home but got tired of waiting for the sun to come up over the mountain that I live by/on. This is a shot I took from my front porch, which shows what the western horizon looked like around 7:30 AM. I know the sun comes up in the east so I’m not sure why the western horizon looked like a sunrise too.

I wrapped more of my Easter gifts in the pastel tissue paper as I watched some of the Narnia video below and the Easter Music and the Spoken Word.

Then it was time for Conference! We watched both sessions, and I watched the World Report in between and finished wrapping.

After GC, we headed over to my married daughter’s home for dinner and an egg hunt and the gifts. Before dinner we opened up Resurrection Eggs with the grandsons to tell the Easter story. Then we had dinner, some fish, chicken, and veggies. The hunt was fun for those who did it. As my son-in-law said, “It’s just so so magical to find candy outdoors!”

The wrapped gift thing that matched numbers inside eggs didn’t go as well as I had expected. I had been debating about hiding the number eggs or just putting them in a basket. I finally decided to just keep them in a basket and open the eggs and match the numbered packages, then unwrap the gifts, after the hunt, as people ate their candy from the hunt. So that’s what we did. Then I mixed that with reading pages from the Emily Belle Freeman Easter picture book shown up above. That was just too much. My people enjoyed opening the gifts, but I wanted them to be more fun about trading. I wanted more conversation to happen about the gifts as well. Like the fact that one of the books was written by our former neighbor. The whole thing was too long. I’m still debriefing the whole thing to figure out what to do differently next year.

I wish I had closed our Easter egg hunt and gift unwrapping with singing “He is Risen!” or some other joyful Jesus song. I didn’t have a godly closure to our egg hunt and unwrapping of gifts. I will for sure do that next year. I also planned too much and had too many gifts so will pare down next year, to one gift per person, or enroll other people in getting prizes. I’m hoping to get the family members enrolled early on, like starting on Valentine’s Day, in doing an egg exchange, an idea from Maria Eckersley, as I blogged about over here. I also hid a golden egg that was empty. The symbolism was that it’s empty because it symbolizes Jesus’ tomb, and golden because our future is golden. I of course asked them why they thought it was empty and why it was golden to drive the point home. Next year I’m thinking of putting something in the golden egg but I’m not sure what. Money seems too crass and candy seems too cheap but I’m not sure what else to do. Maybe they’ll be able to trade it in for a $25 gift card to use at a bookstore. I’m always wanting to encourage reading at every chance I get :-).

I just read my blog from last year about how I had wanted to do a family Easter love basket. I had forgotten that was my plan! I’m copying an edited version of it below. If I remind family members starting at Christmas to get ready for Easter with one thing for the family Easter love basket, maybe it will happen!

I think from now on I want to do a family Easter basket, like shown below, just for a little more fun, and say it’s the family Easter love basket, from our family love, not from the Easter bunny. I want to give family members the credit for giving, not some dumb pretend bunny made up to sell more toys. Of course all my kids are older so the ideas for little kids don’t apply. I’ll ask everybody who lives at home, now that I have teen and adult children, to contribute one inexpensive, simple thing the family will enjoy, whether it’s food, socks, a puzzle, a game, or even some pages of meaningful thoughts in the form of a letter or poetry. I’ll ask them to deposit it in the basket after people go to bed. The item can even be thrifted to save money, as I am all for thrifting, as you’ve seen here. In my fantasy life I envision having all the time and money in the world to make gloriously naturally crunchy mom nontoxic, sugar-free treats and gifts including jewelry that promotes faith in Christ, scripture study aids, classic books, gardening tools, items for summer like new beach towels or swimsuits, puzzle books, aprons, kitchen gadgets, and fidget toys. Reality is settling in though to bring me back to the idea of having each family member contribute, even with cheap thrifted items. It just sounds fun and encouraging of generosity to ask everyone to give of themselves in some small way, to remember the infinite way Christ did, which we are celebrating at Easter time.

So if everybody gets one thing and wraps it we can number those gifts and then put the numbers in eggs and hide them. Asking people to each get a prize and wrap it will get them more invested in the activity.

Over all I had a wonderful Easter. It was fun to go thrifting for the nonedible surprises. I have loved the music I’ve been watching, singing, and playing this Easter season. I loved the egg decorating and kite flying. I’ve loved reading Easter-related books for Morning Basket. I hope that the gifts grow on the people more as they dive into them. It was fun to hear my son-in-law thumb through the grilling cookbook I got him and hear his exclamations. My married daughter enjoyed the stuff I got her and also said she wants to read the book I got for her sister. I definitely felt the Holy Spirit witness to me that the Easter story is true, that Jesus really did lay down His life for each one of us, because of His endless and abiding love. Because He did that, He gave us each the gifts of overcoming sin and death. That is why each of us has a golden future. My Easter 2026 so far has all been just a taste of even more wonderful and greater things to come, because of Jesus. He’s coming again to rule and reign on earth! We can live joyfully with Him and our families in the next life. The best is yet to be!

Watch below to see what happened to Jesus after He resurrected Himself. These videos are from my dear friend Patti Rokus, a girlfriend from my Veggie Gals group.

He is Risen Indeed!