Happy Easter!

Easter weekend we had beautiful weather and spent as much time outside as possible.  We did dye Easter eggs on Holy Saturday morning and got out all the Easter decorations.

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Easter morning, the girls woke up early ready to find their Easter baskets (hidden by the Easter bunny).  I got them a few new books that were recommended on one of my favorite blogs: .http://www.elizabethfoss.com/reallearning/2014/03/in-the-book-basket-for-lent.html and filled their baskets with sunglasses, character band-aids (sounds silly, but is a special treat for them!), candy, and new DVDs (Veggietales, Dora, and a few saint ones). 

Easter cards from Gpa Ken and Gma Joy

Luckily we still had time to make resurrection rolls and have a nice big breakfast before mass!  

You can find the meaning behind the resurrection rolls here: http://catholiccuisine.blogspot.com/2009/04/resurrection-rolls.html.

I love to go downtown to St. Louis Bertrand for mass because it is a beautiful church and has awesome Dominican priests and some wonderful families.  Although I wish we could go there every Sunday, we have made it a tradition to at least go their for mass on Easter.  Unfortunately we had to change our plans this year.  Our van was having some issues so we took it to the shop on Friday and they couldn't fix it until Monday, so we had to squish in Paul's car to get around.  Not exactly ideal for driving downtown :(  So we went to mass at St. Aloysius (a five minute drive) at 11:00 and ending up getting a seat two rows from the front!  It was a beautiful mass and the girls were great...a real Easter blessing!

The girls in their Easter best

Daddy and his girls

Mommy and her girls

Our good friends and neighbors, the McCarthys, always go to her mom's farm on Easter for a big lunch and an Easter egg hunt and this year they invited us.  I have to say I was secretly relieved to not have to stand in the kitchen all afternoon making dinner, but shh...don't tell anyone.

We had a great time, especially the girls who ran around with their friends, pet the animals, and collected a TON of candy-filled eggs during the egg hunt.  The guys played cornhole and threw the frisbee, while the ladies served lunch and sat around and chatted.  It was very relaxing and joy-filled day!

Paul and Ger throwing the frisbee

The kids burying Hannah in eggs

We missed all our family, but hope you all had a very blessed Easter!  

Lent 2014

This year I tried to have the girls not only focus on a sacrifice each day during Lent but also either say extra prayers or do some form of almsgiving.  Some of the different things they did were: write a thank you letter to someone, pray for one of their sisters, give away a toy, pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet, as well as give up things like sweets, tv, etc.

We also did a Jesus Tree this year.  Mollie had given me the kit a couple years back, but I never actually opened it until this year.  The girls loved it!  Each day we read a story out of their children's bible and then they put a symbol that corresponded to the story on the tree.  It was a perfect reflection on the stories from the three years of Jesus' ministry.

The girls also watched Miracle Maker, which helped them further understand the stories we were reading from the bible.

We did our usual Holy Thursday meal that represents food from Jesus' time.  Find the explanation here: http://klinkersinkentucky.blogspot.com/2012/04/holy-week-treats-and-crafts.html.  Then we went to Holy Thursday mass as a family.  The girls love to watch the washing of the feet!

Good Friday the girls had their cross sandwiches for lunch, then we made homemade pretzels like they used to make during lent all the way back in the 5th century.  We used a different recipe this year...an Auntie Anne's copycat recipe I found on Pinterest: http://www.yammiesnoshery.com/2012/04/auntie-annes-pretzels-copycat-recipe.html.  They really did taste like Auntie Anne's pretzels from the mall.  Delicious!!!

Photo bomb by the Dad

I took Rose and Ava with me to the Good Friday service, which was nice because we could sit up front!  Ava was too shy to kiss the cross, but I am glad she was there.  Maybe next year!  The girls also watched a cartoon version of Christ's passion during the day and Paul and I watched The Passion of the Christ at night after the girls went to bed.

It was a reflective two days...perfect for preparing us for the joy of Easter on Sunday!