Easter 2013

Ruby had a chance to celebrate her first Easter with us. The girls and I drove to Somerset County on Thursday.  This is the view we had during one snowy walk--it is the barn across the field from my grandmother's house.

There were no kittens in the barn when we arrived, but by the next day newborn kittens mewed in the corner.  Instead of begging to spend hours coddling kittens in the barn, Pearl understood that one does not handle such tiny things.  Ruby once again enjoyed viewing the cows but jumped when she found a barn cat three feet away from her.

On Friday we dyed eggs. Sapphire sped through her allotted eight eggs, popping them into and out of the dye cups like an assembly line before asking for more.  Pearl labored over hers lovingly, and Ruby just about got the hang of it, though she still doesn't have her color words down.

On Saturday the other visiting aunts and uncles rolled in, and we got to see some cousins.  The meal was perfect, and Pearl enjoyed some serious Dutch Blitz afterward.

The editor of my Christmas book wants me to acquiesce that while Christmas seems like the high point of the year, Easter is the liturgical pinnacle.  It seems ironic, when Christmas receives so much more build up and attention. 

I spent time last week explaining Easter to Sapphire, and she finally got the gist of it. Otherwise I don't feel like we did a very good job preparing for Holy Week this year, but Easter Sunday helped.  We worshiped with my Church of God Grandmother. The message was about the stone, and how the women who worried about how to move it aside found it all taken care of when they arrived.






Afterward we had a relaxing leftovers meal and lazy afternoon with family. Uncle Alexandrite worked hard to make up to Ruby, and by the end of the weekend she was falling asleep in this great-uncle's lap.


This is the one holiday I consistently celebrate without my husband.  It seems logical, since his duties keep him busy all weekend (four services in four days), and he is fairly wiped out afterward. But being so far west meant we missed seeing some of our other family over Easter; we pray that the joy and victory of Easter would be with you all throughout the year.

There is promise in Christmas, but there is fulfillment in Easter. 

Getting back into our school routine after Pearl's trip to Boston hasn't been easy (read tears), but we are progressing. Today we had a great time at CHAMP, our co-op, and here Pearl is working with her classmates on filling in continent facts they collected. 

She has baulked at reading her chapter books, but today I told her she could read next to me while I napped (CHAMP takes it out of me!), and that's all she needed to plow through half an American Girl book.  She's so social that reading alone is a misery!