1. Healthy children - In the past few weeks, we've had many opportunities to consider how blessed we are in the health of our children. First Son has probably only been sick, even with a cold, a handful of times. He went in this week to establish a file as a new patient with a new doctor and I had occasion to think again of his remarkable health.
2. Wonderful friends willing to juggle children with us. On evening last week we had four people who needed to be in three different places. With a bit of convoluted driving and passing children and soccer equipment between friends everyone was where they needed to be and I think only one person was late.
3. Our first irises bloomed on Holy Thursday. Last year the first one was on Easter. Oh, how I love our irises!
4. I took First Son and Second Daughter to Stations of the Cross on Good Friday. They did fairly well. Then we came home and read stories about the Passion and I let the children use the Resurrection Eggs to their great delight.
5. We took the children to the Easter Vigil. I joked to Kansas Dad that it's been seven years since we took any of our children to the Vigil (First Son was just an infant) and it might be seven more years. Father aimed for about an hour and a half, but the Mass was closer to two hours and fifteen minutes. Second Daughter napped through a lot of it but Second Son was awake the whole time. At the end he was so adorable. We were in the back of the church when he looked up brightly at me and asked, "Abba dabba abba dabba abba dabba bye bye?" He charmed me with his beautiful smile which clearly said, "Oh, I know you love me so much you're going to take me outside now to play." When I said, "No, sweetie, it's not quite time to leave yet," he responded by saying "Arggg!" and slapping his thighs. Then we repeated it five seconds later. When we got home, everyone tasted the Resurrection Cookies and marveled at the empty tombs before the younger three all cried for thirty minutes as we got them all ready for bed.
6. On Easter Sunday, we slept in, had a leisurely breakfast of Reeses's peanut butter eggs, Resurrection cookies and waffles. Then we went to church for the Easter egg hunt where Second Son won the prize (a little bubble maker toy). We had a lovely lunch with Grammy and Paw Paw and then the children had yet another Easter egg hunt in their yard. This is an annual tradition the children love, full of all the best candy. They also received a few select summer clothes, including Lego Star Wars pajamas for First Son. Second Son slept through the second egg hunt and had little interest in the eggs we left for him, but he was very happy to climb into the driver's seat on the sly as we were packing the van to leave.
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| Waiting for the church egg hunt |
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| Second Son, happy at last |
