7 Quicktakes- It's Allllmost Easter!

1. Fish Fry

 Last Friday, we attended the parish Fish Fry at long last.  We usually try to make at least one a year with my godfather and his wife.  This year, my parents were also in town so they came along too.  We got our own table outside the parish hall, so it was more private and quiet (well, as quiet as it could be considering we had our gaggle of girls giggling and chatting away).  

2. Elise's birthday party

Elise turns 5 a few days after Easter, but we celebrated early since my parents were in town.  It was just a small party with the same guests as the fish fry picture above (our family, my parents, and my godfather and his bride).  Elise, however, insisted on a "theme" which was Fancy Nancy ballerinas.  So the girls dressed up.  Agnes made a delicious dinner, I brought salad, and yummy chocolate birthday deliciousness and there was lots of dancing from the little ones throughout the night.  

Lots of personality in this bunch....

yep, she was fancy too.  and full of personality.  She is definitely one of ours. 

3. Weekly Update

Let's focus this week on the girls' reactions to our big move to Colorado next month:

Kayla: Being nearly 7 and more aware of what a move actually means, she alternates between feelings of excitement and sadness.  She is especially bummed to say good-bye to her ballet studio and her amazing ballet teacher, Miss Marisa.   She is also bummed about leaving our dear friends behind.  But she is excited for new adventures, new places to hike, and the thrill of a new house *with a yard!*  She is already planning a treehouse.....

Elise: Nearly 5, she doesn't seem to really care one way or another.  She's heard enough to know that moving can be a little sad, so she just keeps telling everyone in her sad, depressed little voice that we are moving because we are having a baby.  1. that's not true.  2. she's actually excited about moving to a place with snow, so we can build a snowman, soo.....there you have Elise. 

Ava: She really has no idea what's going on at all, but does listen to her sisters' reactions and tries to come up with her own at times.  Most of the time she just gets really caught up in the "yard with a treehouse and fruit trees" idea and the "Do you wanna build a snowman?" excitement since Colorado will definitely have snow at times.  

Sophie: She's 1.  Her reaction is the same as her reaction to every day.  Big huge grins.  

4. Easter eggs 

 

This year, we decided to combine science with the fun of dying Easter eggs.  We scoured Pinterest for ideas for what fruits/veggies/spices to use to dye our Easter eggs naturally, and found some interesting ones.  After sharing our eggs on Instagram, we got even more fun ideas to try for next year (red cabbage, purple cauliflower etc.....!)

 

I confess, I can't remember which egg was dyed in what.  I can tell you that our try at an "orange egg" using orange peel and carrots as the dye did NOT work, but our other tries did at least give us some result.  I think the one above on the right might be our paprika egg.  Yellow onion skins also yielded a good strong color.  The close-up eggs above were ones that we added little leaves to and then wrapped in nylons while they sat in the dye, so that they would have fun shapes on them.   We were pretty excited to see the fun (and sometimes surprising) results.  Kayla wanted to try strawberries, which yielded a VERY pale pink colored egg, but was really delightful to smell the whole way through the process.  :)  

5.  Books on Tape (err, CD)

We have adopted a fun pastime in recent months of checking out books on CD at the library and listening to them in the car.  So far, the girls and I have listened to Mary Poppins,  Peter Pan, and we are nearly through with 101 Dalmatians.   This is fun for all of us because I didn't read a lot of these classics growing up.  I only recently (like last year) read Mary Poppins for the first time.  After having watched the movie Saving Mr. Banks, I finally picked it up to read.   So Mary Poppins was the first book on CD I picked up at the library for the girls to try out and they loved it.  Kayla especially gets really into the stories, but even Elise and Ava pick up quite a bit of it and listen intently most of the time when we turn it on.  I wasn't surprised that the books differ quite a bit from the movies, but it was really fun to see just how different many of the stories are and of course how they are similar as well, and what aspects WERE, in fact, kept very close to the original stories.  

6.  Good Friday

Our Good Friday was spent at home (Chris was able to attend noon Stations of the Cross at a parish near his office during his lunch time).  We did quiet activities like color and draw pictures of Jesus and the Saints, read our collection of Bible stories, books about Saints, and other books about virtues.  And we worked extra hard at trying to make sacrifices of love for Jesus today.  

During the week, the girls and I had a goal of saying all of the Joyful, Luminous, and Glorious mysteries together (we've been doing a Sorrowful mystery each night as a family during Lent).  We've also been praying a Station (sometimes two) a night as a family, so after dinner, we decided to do a different set of very simple Stations of the Cross that we picked up one day at our local parish.  We ended up taking a walk and saying our Stations while we walked, and then we said our Crucifixion decade of the Rosary, and also completed our First Day of the Divine Mercy Chaplet Novena.  Our 'walking prayers' reminded me of my days at FUS and the Brothers of the Eternal Song Household's walking Rosary each evening.  

Simple stations were perfect to do while we walked with the kiddos.  We added the "We adore you O Christ, and we praise you.  Because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world."  at the beginning of each station prayer.  

7. Painting

And we finally completed the neat project below found here (link),  The girls really seemed to understand about both the pain and sadness of the Cross (the suffering that Christ endured for our sins) as well as the beauty of the Cross (the greatest love story of all time).  

 

Here are the finished products:

 

By His wounds, we are healed.  

Jesus, I trust in You.