Holy Week and Easter, 2012

I hope everyone had a spiritually productive Lent and a joyful Easter. Here's some of what we were up to during Holy Week.

One of our family customs is to have a Catholic seder meal, this year on the Wednesday of Holy Week.

Roasted eggs, bitter herbs, unleavened bread, and salt water for tears.

I'm horribly un-crafty, but I was inspired by Catholic Icing to make homemade Paschal candles with the kids.

Purple plastic tablecloths work great as impromptu religious image covers.

On Easter morn at break of day...

I tried my hand at "masking" designs on eggs. It sort of worked.

The kids made short work of finding the hidden eggs.

Happy Easter! Christ is Risen!

April Foolery

I promised I would go into more detail about my "hilarious" birthday present, and now I am at liberty to do so.

Here is a picture of what my brother gave to me on my birthday:


"OK...", I expect you're thinking. But there's more: he made it himself! Bought the mold and the ingredients and everything.

"That's nice." Oh, we haven't even gotten to the good part yet! He made it himself because he just couldn't find one in the stores or online.

Because this bunny is made of CAROB!

Oh the humanity...

Carob -- indistinguishable from chocolate in appearance and texture, until you bite into it and that burnt-raisin taste slowly spreads itself over your tongue. And this was no random April Fool's prank either, because carob and I have History, and Daniel well knew it. As youngsters, a friend's mother once gave us carob bunnies at Easter. She was known for her occasional "health kicks", and apparently she was on one at Easter that year. My mother presented us with the bunnies but didn't tell us what they were. Delighted, as any child presented with a chocolate bunny would be, we dug in. But... something was wrong... my bites came slower ...and slower... and after a while I looked up at my Mom in sadness and confusion and confessed that I just couldn't eat it, it tasted bad. Then, mercifully, the truth was revealed to me, and we all learned a valuable lesson: some things, like carob and spaghetti squash, are acceptable as themselves, but are an abomination if you try to pass them off as substitutes for the real thing.

So yeah. Daniel bought a mold, hunted high and low for carob chips, and crafted his own dang carob bunnies, just to pull the same trick on me as had been pulled oh-so-many years ago. Such perseverance, in pursuit of such an ignoble goal! Thanks, bro. :-)

My turn

My birthday has its idiosyncrasies. To begin with, it's April Fool's Day; I'm sure you can imagine the trouble that leads to. Additionally, it nearly always falls in Lent, and frequently on Good Friday. Over the years I have become accustomed to celebrating my birthday on the most convenient non-Lenten day, but this year I was in luck: my birthday fell on Palm Sunday! Let the partaaaaay commence.

Potted hyacinths make lovely centerpieces (and they smell good too).

Birthday breakfast of champions: croissants, jam, and coffee.

The coffee cup bears the chemical formula for caffeine.

God came through with a good gift: a birthday rainbow!

I received some lovely, and hilarious, gifts from my family, but that is a topic for a later post. Mwahahahaha.

Isaiah's 4th birthday, quarantine edition

Let me explain... no, there is too much, let me sum up: When we took Eve in for her six year well-child checkup last Wednesday, we mentioned to the doctor that she'd had a sporadic bad cough for a week, and that her Daddy had had a similar cough for going on a month. It turned out to be whooping cough (!?!), and so the whole family was immediately put on antibiotics and told to stay away from people until the course of antibiotics was over. (Have I mentioned that we were all vaccinated?) This meant no school, no Mass attendance, and... no birthday party with the grandparents for Isaiah. :-(

Well, what can you do? I put the cake layers I'd already baked into the freezer, made a bunch of Isaiah's favorite foods, busted out the boxed cake mix, and we had ourselves a wee little family party.

I got my purple-frosted cupcake, my purple candles, my purple card envelope, and my purple shades. I'm all set.

Could this be called "snuff footage"?

Boxed mix or no, the cupcakes went over fairly well.

Samuel looks good in a beard, I think.

At last, my own stuffed animal chair!

I guess that wasn't so bad a birthday after all.

I think my heart may explode

In the space of the last 12 hours, Eve has told me

1) That she wants to be a mommy when she grows up
2) That she wants to be just like me
and
3) That I cook really good food.

I know, she's six, all young children say things like this to their parents at some point, they have no other real examples of how to be in their lives so it's natural, but STILL. She's never said anything like this to me before, and my gratification knows no bounds.

Splat!

More snow! I'm delighted, although it's a little frustrating that it has showed up now, as opposed to, say, Christmas. This time, school was delayed two hours, which gave us enough time to properly enjoy the snow before it turned to slush.

Isaiah, negotiating our slope.

Eve, up to no good.

Samuel...

...otherwise known as "the fast learner".

Incoming!
(Moments later he deposited his load of snow on my leg. It was the closest he could get to throwing a snowball at me.)

Our first snowman as a family!

The snowballs weren't the only things going "splat". Poor widdle flowers!

Eve's 6th birthday, party edition

This year I took my courage in both hands and decided to throw an actual birthday party for Eve. A party with, you know, guests. Oh sure, we'd had parties before, invited a friend or two, but this time we invited nine kids (and hence a minimum of nine accompanying parents). This meant that we not only had to plan a party for the kids, but also the party-within-the-party for the adults. None of the pictures below show anything of the adults-party, which is a shame, because I actually put my mother-in-law's pressed glass punch bowl to use, and it was stunning. I'm going to have to throw parties more often, so I can make more punch.

First, some more flower pictures, because I'm a flower crackhead.

I think these are "Tete-a-tete" daffodils (narcissus).

Eve, wearing what's left of a unicorn pinata.

Eve requested a strawberry cake with chocolate frosting.

After a moment of indecision, she blew all the candles out with one puff, without leaning forward.

Being six is fierce.