Easter Weekend

Just under the wire before the end of the octave, I'm back with a recap of our Holy Week and Easter festivities. We were originally thinking Adam would take six weeks of full-time paternity leave and go back to work right after Betsy's baptism and his family's visit. Then we realized an extra week would allow him to be home for the Triduum and give us time to recuperate from a busy week of celebrations and visitors. 

On Thursday, we did a seven church visitation. It's a tradition that normally happens after the evening Mass on Holy Thursday, but since we have many small children we moved it to daytime. We left home at 10:00 am, visited two churches, stopped for lunch at Chick-fil-A, visited two more churches, stopped for a playground/nursing break, sped through the remaining three, and got back home at 4:00 pm. We stuck to parishes in our town and the next two closest suburbs, so it was pretty much a tour of awful 70s architecture. Maybe next year we'll venture into Seattle for more historic, classically designed churches. 

On Good Friday, we went to Stations of the Cross with the parish school. On Saturday we dyed our traditional confetti eggs and made a carrot cake. 

We went to the 7:00 am sunrise service on Easter Sunday because we were worried about the crowds at the later masses. I think we had over exaggerated how crowded it would be in our heads though. We'd only have needed to get there thirty minutes early for a good seat. It's nowhere near as busy as the children's service on Christmas Eve! Next year we definitely won't be waking up extra early. But maybe we'll convince ourselves to attempt the vigil again - we seem to work ourselves up to it every other year, whenever we don't have a little baby. 

We asked a friend to take a family photo after Mass and this was the best of the bunch. 

So we continued the photo shoot at home with better results. 

Claire and Maggie helped us get out all the Easter books and decorations.

This is my sewing table, currently being used as a changing table. I love all of Katrina's artwork at Hatch Prints! I now have Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter prints to change out in those frames, as well as some art for ordinary time.



I sent Claire and Maggie to their room while I quickly set out their Easter baskets. They got some new markers, a few card games (Uno, Old Maid, Hiss) and chocolate bunnies from our favorite local chocolate store. Betsy got a headband and a super soft Jelly Cat stuffed bunny. We each got a box of truffles from the chocolate store as well. The girls got new Easter books - Rechenka's Eggs, Easter Day in the Morning, and My Day With Jesus (a board book about the donkey Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday).



After saying grace at dinner during Lent, we light a candle and sing "Take Up Thy Cross." During Easter, we sing "Jesus Christ is Risen Today." We made waffles for brunch and sang an especially rousing rendition with particularly enthusiastic alleluias from some little girls.

We bought tickets to an egg hunt at Fox Hollow Farm that afternoon. We discovered this lovely farm last summer and had a blast exploring the grounds with friends, so when we found out they had an egg hunt actually during Easter (not before which almost always seems to be the case) we were all over it. Tickets were $50 per car, but to visit the farm it's usually $20 per kid. We figured we were only paying $10 more than usual and we'd get to hunt for eggs too.  Well, turns out Easter in Seattle was cold, rainy, and miserable. We hunted for a few eggs, went for a quick pony ride, and headed home as it started hailing. We certainly learned our lesson about buying tickets to an outdoor event in March!











On Easter Monday, I picked up some clearance candy and we had our own egg hunt in the backyard.





As is our tradition, it ended with smashing confetti eggs on each others' heads. Grandma and Grandpa, Claire specifically saved two of her eggs for your next visit, so get ready!