A Painted Cross

I feel like we've been talking about Easter around our house for a few months now.  I guess it probably started soon after Valentine's Day.  At the first mention of Easter, Olivia commented on how she is going to get a basket.  This sort of shocked me.  I don't remember saying that to her any time recently, but I can't imagine that she remembers from last year.  I asked her what would be in her basket and she replied "Eggs!".  I asked what was in the eggs and she said, "eggs!". :)  So she has been talking about her Easter basket and Easter eggs for a while now.  I think the basket and eggs are fun, and I have no problem with her looking forward to getting it.  I don't think she expects anything.  She'd probably be just as happy with empty eggs, actually.  But I wanted to make sure that she didn't think Easter was just all about getting eggs.  When it came time to doing a craft, I wanted to choose something that was related to the real meaning of Easter.  So I chose a simple cross.

I took a large white piece of "finger painting" paper and made a cross on it with blue painters tape.

Then I gave Olivia some of that glitter paint we used at Halloween and let her get to painting.

While she painted I tried to talk to her about why we celebrate Easter. How do you explain that to a two year old?

Honestly, I don't think she has any concept of death, so I was finding it a little challenging.

But I basically told her that Jesus died on the cross for our bad choices (sins). That is the part she remembers.  Whether she understands it or not, I don't know.  I tried to help it make sense and explained that he rose again on the third day.

Even if she doesn't quite understand, it did start us talking about it.  We did this last week.  Since then she will randomly say, "Mommy, remember what Easter is all about?" and I will ask her what and she will reply, "The cross".  I will ask her what about the cross and she will say, "Jesus died on the cross" and then she will wait a minute and say, "And rose again!"  I'm sure these are just words at this point, but at least it's a start.

And her beautiful artwork is hanging on the fridge to help remind us all.