Easter 2014

This past weekend (well, really week) was packed full of all things Easter. It was our first time celebrating the Easter Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday) in the Catholic Church, and since we were joining the church on Holy Saturday, we as part of the RCIA class (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) were apart of all the Masses. Thankfully, Evan thought ahead and took today off so we could lay around and watch Frozen with the children 4 million times today. (Dude, you guys, last night my dreams were interlaced with Frozen songs...great soundtrack, but not when you are trying to stay asleep.)

Of course, we dyed eggs. This year, Vivian was all about "I do it myself!", which meant someone had to hover so she wouldn't drink, drop, spill, or throw the mugs filled to the brim with dye.

 I love seeing a carton full of colored eggs. It's always one of my favorite Easter traditions.

 This is Evan and I before the Holy Saturday service. We clean up well, yes?  :)

 The Saturday service starts at sundown, which here in Texas is after 8pm. It also is a 3 hour long service, so, thankfully, our wonderful neighbor came over and watched the girls for us. The service was beautiful--it starts with a bonfire on the stone patio (not the technical term) of the church where the priest blesses the fire which is used to light the really big candle (not the technical term) used to light candles for masses. Then we all walked into the church where we all lit our own candles from the big candle. Two members from our RCIA class were baptized, which was awesome to witness. But, after months of being in the RCIA classes (since Sept 2013), it was an amazing feeling to finally become part of the Church. Our last class is this coming Thursday and the girls are sad (they are watched by a wonderful woman named Kathy, who was also my sponsor, and they are all sad that they won't get to see her every week anymore to play games and watch movies in the room next to our class). One of the leaders of our class took a thousand pictures (I amy not be exaggerating) of the service, so I am hoping she brings them on Thursday to share.

Evan and I got home a little after 11:30pm, so we hurried to bring their Easter baskets up and hide the eggs around the house. True to her nature, Vivian was the first one up at 6:30am and was ECSTATIC that we actually allowed her to wake up the other two girls (usually, we tell her they have to keep sleeping because Vivian likes to wake at ungodly early hours). Vivian found one egg right away and was content to just eat the contents from it and not search for more.

Do you like how Vivian's Easter basket is a new dump truck? I still hadn't bought her one yet and she really, really loves dump trucks right now. I thought this was a happy compromise. 

 Julia about exploded when she saw the movie Frozen in her basket. She had only seen it one other time since we went to see it in the theater and has asked about once a week to own it on dvd.

 The only way we were able to get a family Easter picture was by standing next to Vivian on our neighbor's tractor.

 They turned out well, though!! Probably one of the best ones of the 5 of us in a while!

 Our neighbor put together an Easter egg hunt for the houses around us. 12 kids and well over 100 eggs. Ebeth got to help her hide them.

 Can we please talk about Julia's Easter dress? We bought it at Costco and it's just so beautiful!

I caught her spinning all day.

 Vivian was much more excited to find eggs when she realized the more eggs she found, the more candy there was to eat.

 She found her allotted 10 and then squatted like a frog to eat their contents.

 Then, because our neighbor is the most awesome person ever, the kids got to break a pinata that she had made herself.

 It was a really good weekend.

Hope you all had a blessed Easter weekend too!!!

Spring Break is leaving us tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the last day of Spring Break and I can safely say that Ebeth has had oodles of fun this past week. We participated in few library activities, including a magic show (probably her fav of the week) and an arts and crafts time. We went to the Peoria Glen Oak Zoo which superdy duperdy sucked. Not kidding, the place is so pathetic. Ebeth said, "This is the smallest zoo I've ever been to!" (and she should know, the girls been to countless zoos) (I so have a zoo problem). But, the bestest thing we visited was the Children's Discovery Museum in Bloomington. I love that place. Ebeth was entertained for hours, it's not that expensive, you can bring food, and Julia had plenty to do!!!







Ebeth's favorite part of the museum--using the crutches.


Julia randomly decided to cruise around this thing. She'll so be walking before I know it.
I adore this face! This is the face Ebeth makes when she's a bit uncomfortable/shy. She wanted to play on this dentist's chair, but then a random kid started to play with the buttons, making Ebeth go up and down. She was unsure of how to respond to this.

She refused to finish the game of checkers with me. Stinker.





We also made some time to visit our good friend Baby Ben. He was impressed with Julia's mad raspberrying skills.





For Easter, we spent Saturday with my family. We ate dinner at my Grandma's where we had the annual Easter Egg Hunt!







Then it was home to greet Jana and Keith after their trip to Gulf Shores and to dye Easter Eggs!


We spent Easter at home. Julia was impressed with her Easter basket and Ebeth found all 33 eggs the Easter bunny left. Ebeth was a bit disappointed that the E.B. only put one type of candy in all the Easter eggs. The Easter bunny took note not to do that next year, but wants to defend himself that the large bag of Robin's Eggs was on sale and enormous.