Week 4 Quarantine: Holy Week and Easter

Week 4, and we're starting to see men growing out their beards, including my own husband that typically has to be clean shaven for work.

One day this week I went to my mother-in-law's house and helped her organize and de-clutter which was a nice break.  I gave the younger children a light school load that day.  My older children are most days completing their work in less time than it is supposed to take them.  I like that they have more time for free reading, family time, and hobbies.  Just like the old days when we homeschooled. :)  We started watching The Chosen as a family this week.  So far it's been okay for the little ones, but we haven't watched many episodes yet.

This week was Holy Week, and we were forced to miss my favorite Mass of the year on Holy Thursday.  We ordered pizza that night and live streamed the Mass.  

Good Friday we were able to have a thirty minute chapel time for just our family in the Eucharistic Chapel.  They allowed sign ups of only eight people, and so we were able to fill a whole spot.  That was a nice way to break up the monotony of staying home.  At 3pm we watched the live-streamed service and then did our own Stations of the Cross here at home that we were able to do each Friday of Lent that we were quarantined.  The only difference this time is that we did it in the afternoon before our soup dinner on Good Friday instead of after our soup/fish dinner, like on the other Fridays.  Isaac plays the piano for us and Brian and Genna led the singing of Stabat Mater while Brain and I led the Stations prayers and readings.  We have a set of nicely illustrated pictures for just this occasion that we hang around the living room/dining room area.  Normally it is after it gets dark, and the younger three kids like to carry flashlights and light up the pictures as we pray.  The readers and piano players wear head lamps.  I will cherish the memory of this time.  I hope the kids remember it fondly as well.  Bobby asked if we could always pray with flashlights.  After the little children were in bed, the older three and Brian and I watched the movie Passion of the Christ.

Holy Saturday Isaac blew out a dozen eggs, and I used the insides for breakfast tacos.  I also hard boiled two dozen eggs in preparation for our egg dying.  We cleaned the house as we always do on Saturday morning, and I dropped off my nephew's birthday gift on his doorstep before our Zoom birthday party for him at noon.  After that we played Dutch Blitz as a family, and Nanna arrived to spend the holiday weekend with us.  (I think I left out in my earlier posts that she has come to stay with us for a few days once her resort closed down as well.  We had a big dinner, and Brian prepared his Apple Strudel to be baked after Easter Vigil.  Judah and Bobby both sacked out on the couch during the Vigil and Bob couldn't recover from that, so he asked to be taken to bed.  The rest of us ate our dessert and stayed up way past our bedtimes. 

Easter morning we slept in and gave the kids their Easter baskets after coffee.  Then we did our Resurrection Eggs.  By then it was close to lunch, so Brian started the ribs and chicken in the smoker and we all ate lunch...and candy.  Isaac and I tried to make our own sweetened condensed milk so that he could make his key lime pie while Brian hid the eggs.  Then the Easter egg hunt was on.  The big kids made us promise not to put pictures of them hunting for eggs on social media.  So here are the cute innocent ones...

Couldn't catch this guy's face once again.  Too busy getting those eggs.

Barely was able to get this one to pause long enough to snap a picture, but he's still looking for those eggs.

After the hunt was over the real chaos began.  We moved everything out to the gazebo outside to dye the eggs, both hard boiled and blown out eggs.  Bob wanted us to do everything for him as he doesn't like to get his hands dirty.  This was difficult for us since the older kids were trying to do their eggs and I was trying to learn how to do the wax on the Pysanki eggs.  Next year, the older kids are going to first help the younger ones and only once they are completely finished and off to play will the older kids do their own.  It was just too much all at one time.

Here are the Pysanki eggs.

We had a nice dinner and a video chat with some good friends to end our evening before the kids went to bed.  He is Risen!  Alleluia!