Lent came to a close this year with a definite fizzle. After two weeks and then some with a stomach bug stealthily sneaking through the house hitting each one of us in turn, pretty much all of our sacrifices had been put on hold and copious amounts of Netflix had been watched--and very little schoolwork attempted. We definitely limped over the finish line towards Easter, chocolate croissants in hand.
But, while the last three weeks of Lent were...well, a bit of a disaster, Easter--Easter was glorious.
Holy week services attended: zero
Easter eggs dyed on Holy Saturday: eight dozen
Sometimes you win at Lent and sometimes you spend Holy Week in a chocolate/television induced stupor. Well, there's always next year right?
Thanks to Grandma Kazleman we did have super cute Easter outfits for the kids though--complete with new church shoes--so we weren't complete Easter failures as well..
And yes I did force the boys to wear mother-son coordinating outfits with their bow ties matching my dress. You have to seize those moments while you can before they start to think being mother-son matchers isn't cool anymore. Not that they ever would.
The boys got to hunt for their baskets after we got home from the 7 am mass and following forced photo shoot. Poor Henry couldn't find his basket behind the curtains and almost lost it before he got a timely hint and Easter was saved.
Aunt Courtney provided rain boots for the big boys and a boat and hair bows for John and Margaret respectively which were all big hits. They also got copious amounts of candy and a new book a piece and, as per usual, some new seeds to plant in the garden.
We didn't throw our annual Easter party this year--which was probably a good thing since I would not have been prepared and our yard is still....also a disaster. We did manage to gather ourselves together after mass though and head out for a bit of a family party in Fredericksburg complete with our annual egg hunt/smash which obviously we still had to do :)
Chris cemented his title of "coolest uncle" and he and our oldest nephew Noah took the egg smashing to a whole new level. Luckily none of my children won the game and this year my choice of giant chocolate prize bunnies didn't come back to my home to haunt me with it's over-sized chocolate deliciousness.
Some kids liked having eggs cracked on their heads more than others.....
.....I'm sure he'll grow into the fun.....
And of course, Aunt Kate
Everyone had so much fun it almost made the two hours it took us to drive the 45 minutes home worth it :)
And now, with all of the Lenten Spring cleaning that never came to pass, I'm afraid my house can be accurately summed up in Mrs. Tittlemouse's words from one of our new Easter basket books:
"...the untidiness was something dreadful--'Never did I see such a mess--smears of honey; and moss, and thistledown--and marks of big and little dirty feet--all over my nice clean house!' "Well, except for the part about the "nice clean house." After Easter would probably be a good time to squeeze in that Spring cleaning, maybe not after the whole Easter season but definitely at least after the Octave.....
Happy Easter to everyone, whether you managed to clean out your basements or not! And thanks again to Aunt Kate for hosting us!