Easter 2022 (Roman's First!)

We went to Easter Vigil altogether.  I really had planned on staying home with Roman and Bobby and going on Easter morning, but Brian had to be at the Easter morning service at 6am to serve.  In the end I decided that keeping Roman up late was the better option compared with waking him super early when I finally have him sleeping until 7am most days.  He actually did amazing and fell asleep on me, waking only a couple of times briefly when the lights or music volume would change suddenly.

Easter, around lunchtime, we went over to my sister's house and had lamb and a tri-tip.  The kids decorated eggs and had an egg hunt, or two rather.  The big kids wanted a separate harder version of an egg hunt.  They made me promise not to take any pictures, but they didn't say anything about not mentioning it on my blog.  *wink wink*

Cousin Playpen Buddies!  Chloe's already sitting up and getting so big.  She's passed Roman up already even though she is about 2.5 months younger.

 

April was a busy one! Part I

The Thinker

The Dreamer

The Blondies

First thing we babysat for my niece one day for a few hours.  This two year old girl needs a lot of supervision and planned activities at our house with so many new things to touch and get into, so we paused our homeschool to have all hands on deck.  :)  The three boys were excellent babysitters, helping her with everything and helping me do some learning activities with her too.  

We walked down to our playground in our neighborhood and were working on boundaries with her.  ;)

Then came Holy Week and then Easter!  We went to Easter Vigil and got home around 11pm and baked the Apfelkuchen he made from scratch for the third year in a row.  My husband who doesn't really cook, and certainly doesn't bake, has taken on this tremendous tradition.  I wouldn't do it because I actually don't really love apple desserts.  Put some ice cream on it though and it isn't too bad.

      

We did a terrible job of getting a family picture before Mass because we were so worried about not getting a pew again (It had just happened when we got into traffic on Holy Thursday and arrived only five minutes before Mass.  We sat out in the Narthex.) that Brian and Hannah ran inside as soon as we arrived to save us a pew.  We barely fit into one of the pews actually.  Bob has to sit in my lap.  At some point we'll have to start splitting into two pews. 

Here are the non-pew savers.

Easter baskets

We went to my sister's for Easter in the afternoon to dye eggs, do an egg hunt, and have dinner.

Isaac's Key Lime Pie

Then we met some friends at a park one school day after completing our school earlier in the day.  We walked around the lake and saw many turtles and ducks.  The boys played on a playground and in a huge sand box too.  We had lunch and finished the day with a Sonic drink before heading back.

The boys went with me to get a gift for Genevieve's friend's birthday party to Five Below.  They were so excited that I let them use their money to buy kites (just Judah and Drew) and all three boys bought a long handled sand shovel that they can't wait to use at the beach.  The kites were perfectly timed because it was windy for many days after they bought them.  

Earlier that day, Judah had asked me when they get to go fishing again?  I asked, "To whom should you ask that question?"  When he replied, "Dad," I said something like, "Yeah, I'm really not the fishing mom."  Truth be told I loved fishing when I was younger, but I just have too many things I like better now to make time for that.  So, as we were walking through the garage to get in the van, Judah saw the huge kite wrapped up and hung up high and asked, "Are you the kite mom?" with hopeful eyes.  I said, "I don't really want to be," but I know that Brian is also not really the "kite dad" unless we are at the beach.  Apparently, I am the "kite mom" because they kept coming in telling me it wouldn't work and it was stuck, blah blah blah.  So, out I went to teach kite skills instead of making dinner.

Then we were finally able (and brave enough after a year of no field trips) to go on a field trip.  We went to Fredricksburg for the day with some other families.  I went with some mos to the Pioneer Museum with the younger kids and Drew went with another mom to the World War II museum.  Then we met up to go to Mass in the cutest old church and have a picnic outside.  It was a beautiful day!  We've had such a mild spring here!

The Pioneer Museum was all about the German settlers that came to Texas and the World War II museum was a lot about Admiral Nimitz.

Bob, friend, and Judah (in the front)

We even got ice cream in town before heading home.  It was a fun, but exhausting day!

 

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!

Easter 2019: A Family Affair to Remember

Saturday afternoon we let the kids dye eggs.  I boiled 60 and everyone got nearly ten.  My nephew came over and we shared two with him, but that's all he really cared to do anyway.  It was hot out in that sun.  We need to find a cover for this gazebo that sits in the middle of our (rental's) yard.

Then Brian made an apple strudel, which is pretty crazy since it's the first things he's ever baked...EVER.  He didn't bake it though because we got all cleaned up and went to the Easter Vigil as a family for the first time since Brian and I came into the church.  A late service like that is never fun with little ones, and we always make Holy Thursday Mass a priority since it is my favorite.

Hannah was still getting dressed.  She missed out on the family picture.

Brian was so worried that we wouldn't get seats at the Vigil Mass after our Midnight Mass experience, and so we arrived an hour early.  I did not think this entirely necessary, but I didn't want to be the one responsible for making us stand for over two hours.   So we took some pictures in the van and hung out for a while before going in.  The parking lot was completely empty.

Easter morning, the kids got to have their Easter baskets before heading over to my brother's house for Easter lunch, egg hunts and other festivities!

This is how listening to my husband's yearly Laying Down of the Laws of the Easter Egg Hunt looks.

The gold sparkly one has money in it!

The little ones met at the tot table to check out their egg stash while the older kids tried to find the most tricky eggs hid by the dads.

Of course, there were confetti eggs to smash!

And don't forget a walloping game of water balloon baseball to end the fun at Uncle Kent's before moving to my sister's house to swim.