Holy Week and Easter Blessings

The kids had a nice Easter break from school which was in addition to their Spring Break which they had back in March. It has been lovely! I might have just enough mommy power to get us through till summer now. Oh, how I love these lazy, relaxed days.

On Maundy Thursday we decided instead of going to our Parish service, we'd join my Grandma at her Church for service. She was happy to have us. It was nice being there. The choir was amazing. We usually also go to Church on Good Friday but I had made reservations for the My Sweetie and I to go to the dinner theatre with the tickets we had gotten for Christmas. Grandma's Church covered both the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday....so I felt like I had gotten my entire Holy Week's worth of service in one night. While they were reading the Passion story they would turn out a light one by one in between readings until all lights were out. When they turned off the last light and we were sitting there in the dark, Little Dude kept asking for the lights to be turned on. hehehe...

Saturday was a busy day. Every year since The Boy was little we have attended an Easter Egg hunt that a couple of local families put on out at the school.


This year was the first year Little Dude participated.

My Sweetie's sisters were their with our niece and nephew and after the egg hunt all the cousins were able to play on the playground equipment.


After that we headed over to the Lutheran Church. They were trying out something NEW for the season called the Journey to the Cross. They had 14 stations set up that gave the kids a hands on, participating part in the Easter Story. We had our heads anointed, got to meet and pet a donkey and learn that all donkey's have a cross on their back (COOL!)


We got to parade around waving our palm branches then lay them on the road the way they did as Jesus rode into Jerusalem.
We did rubbings of some Egyptian coins, had our hands or feet washed just as Jesus did to his disciples, were able to taste some food they may have eaten during the Last Supper, prayed in a garden, saw what a crown of thorns and whip looked like, pounded some nails into a board, tasted the vinegar wine that was like what they gave Jesus to drink when he was hanging on the cross and saw an empty "tomb" It was really cool and I think BuhBuh got the most out of the experience. When he saw the crown of thorns you could tell in his eyes that he was comprehending some of the terrible things Jesus had to go through. He even drank all of the sour "wine" that they offered the kids.

Because of several different circumstances of the morning, we completely missed lunch with our friends. The boys played with their cousins for awhile after the egg hunt which was important, we really had no idea what to expect of the Stations of the Cross because it was new and we'd never been to one before. By the time we got to the Church they had just sent out two groups and they wanted us to wait for others to show up before they sent us around. Once we started the "Journey" and realized that we were late and realized the boys were almost done, we decided to let the boys finish and we met with our friends after. We got there just as everyone was coming out for the Easter Egg hunt. We felt TERRIBLE that we were as late as we were and that we had dissappointed our friends. Thankfully they were able to cancel our lunch cost. We probably "coulda, shoulda" done a dozen different things differently, but we just did the best we could with the way the morning played out.

After coming back home the day was so beautiful that the kids got to go outside to play.


The we headed down to My Sweetie's parents house for pizza and another Easter Egg hunt.


For dessert we had birthday cake for Little Dude....my sister-in-law and niece won't be coming home again for the birthday so this way they were able to sing and have some cake with him for his birthday.
Easter morning we were up bright and early. The boys found their "bunny trails" which lead them to some outdoor toys and chairs that they can use for watching one another's sporting games. I took video of this, but didn't get any pictures!!!

We attended Sun Rise Service, had breakfast at church after and then also attended regular service.
When we got home we thought it would be a good day to release BuhBuh's butterflies that we had raised since they were wee little caterpillars.
He very gently, very sweetly removed the butterflies and placed them on the daffodils in our garden.
We ended our day by having Easter dinner at my grandmas house. We taught her a few new card games!!

Today we are resting and relaxing. Tomorrow it is back to "normal" and soon it will be time to get ready to celebrate Little Dude's 2nd Birthday.

Hoping you and enjoyed a beautiful Son Rise!!!!