Holy Week

The week before Easter carries many traditions for our family. Whereas Advent and Christmas celebrations varied from year to year, Lent, Holy Week and Easter were almost always the same ~ watching Jesus of Nazareth, fasting, simple meals, celebrating the Passover dinner, Good Friday service, remaining silent from noon til 3:00 in honor of Our Lord's crucifixion, dying eggs, early morning Mass...and all the conversation that these events inspired.

When Shannon and I married, he jumped right on board.  He loved the infusion of so many traditions in every celebration, as crazy as it can be at times.  We had friends over to celebrate the Passover meal with us this year.  Having experienced a Seder meal at our parish earlier this Lent, Shannon did the best job ever explaining the symbolism-rich celebration.

Last night we dyed eggs with family.  It was absolutely insane with somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 dozen eggs and 13 children.  After we had bleached the last drops of red dye off our floor, Shan and I breathed a deep sigh and sunk into the couch.

While the Easter Vigil has not been a Mass we typically attend, tonight we are welcoming new family into the church!  This evening we will head to the Vigil Mass, but Easter wouldn't be Easter if we didn't go to
7:00 am Mass, so we will be there too.  That is one of my favorites.  We typically are one of the very first families at the church.  The entire Cathedral is completely silent, those of us there at that hour soaking up the complete peace of it all.  It leads me to contemplate the women at the tomb that first Easter morning.  How did it feel to be the first ones to realize that He had risen?
Were they fearful, joy-filled, confused?
Tomorrow cannot arrive soon enough!

The house is filled with the scent of lilies, boiled eggs, and cinnamon rolls in preparation for the Resurrection.
My children are jumping up and down with the anticipation of EVERYTHING, especially baby chicks due to hatch tomorrow!

My heart is filled with a peace that an intentional Lent brings with it every year.

Kath, making "unleavened" bread ~ we just don't allow it to rise 

The little boys helping ~

Dom removing the eggs from the egg turner

Joshie teaching the babies how to play chess...for some reason I don't think they are interested.

 

Waiting for directions from Daddy

"This isn't an assembly line, make sure you make EVERY egg pretty!"

"Uh huh, hurry up please...."

I am makin' it pretty, Daddy ~

Nickels was totally into dying eggs ~

Hannah & Grandma

This one made me laugh ~ Shan is totally into decorating his egg ~ 

Uncle Gabe & Kolby ~

Michaela was in heaven, holding her new baby cousin ~

The Garbage Man

Joshie used to be our garbage man.  He was in charge of emptying all the household garbage into big cans in the garage where Daddy could take it to the dump.

It took a while, like two years, for me to realize that while I was throwing stuff away, Joshie was rescuing it.    
At one point he must have decided that I would spot the valuable goods and place them deep into the garage garbage cans, so he began hiding items beneath his mattress, in drawers, in his treasure box...anywhere that might be safe from discovery.

Finally, I had a revelation ~ pass the job onto someone else.  This would alleviate my anger when I lifted his mattress and found broken antennas, old radio knobs, pieces of long destroyed Sculpey figures, Playmobil people arms, 1/2 a shoelace and other random bits of trash.

So now Dom is our trash man.

Unfortunately, he is ensuring the refuse-rescuing tradition continues.  He takes each bag of garbage to the garage and empties it very carefully into the cans so that no treasure will be missed.
This job is taken very seriously.
Then, knowing what needs to be done to pacify his mother, he runs back inside and places the liners in all the pails before anyone realizes what is stashed in his pockets.

Spring Track Practice

A big event in our homeschooling year is the spring track meet.  It actually isn't that big of a deal, but it is motivation to get out of the house and RUN.  We typically spend the month of April running up and down the road in front of Mom & Dad's house.
This spring there are animals to visit at one end of the road so the older kids cook down there to visit before we bring up the tail with the little kids.
Last night was the first night our family went together.  With the meadowlarks singing, the bluebirds flitting around and not a drop of wind, it was magnificent.

I am not sure what this was about, but it was kinda funny!

Hatching Chicken #3

Embryology is fascinating.  How quickly the chicks begin to develop is absolutely astounding.
Of course, they only have an incubation period of 21 days, so they had better grow rapidly!

This egg was placed in the incubator last Friday.  It is scheduled to hatch April 13th.
The dark spot in the middle is the chick.  We could see it wiggling today too, unless that was just Joshie's hand shaking!
The air bubble that you can see at the end of the shell should get larger as they get closer to hatching.
Drew, you and Isabelle should take a few of the chicks home!  If you started now you could build a chicken coop with your new saw!  Certainly your father has a hammer and some nails lying around.

The Best Day ~

Joshie informed me first thing the other morning, "Today is going to be the best day of your life, Mom!"

I couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen!

It was a typical day, absolutely nothing extraordinary.  It crossed my mind throughout the day what Joshie had meant.  The day was filled with schoolwork, visiting the neighbor's farm, cuddling a new baby lamb, discussing names for the lamb, climbing rocks, discussing names for the lamb, piano lessons, discussing names for the lamb, choir practice....did I mention discussing names for the lamb?

As I was tucking Josh into bed at night he sighed, "Wasn't that the best day ever?"

And indeed it was, I need to see every day in that light.  Every day is a precious gift from our Creator.  The schoolwork, the craziness, the muddy footprints...they are all good.  We are alive and witnessing such beauty around us, but our vision can be clouded by our day-to-day struggles.

Spring ~

It is officially springtime in the mountains.
The weather cannot decide whether to rain or snow, often doing both simultaneously, my boys are frantic to escape outdoors every day, Shannon is itching to burn piles of brush, and I am dreaming (quite literally) of a new landscape project.
Last night's dream is way beyond our scope this year, but it sure looked good ~ in my dreams anyway ~:o)
Maybe I will just have to settle for a new sandbox.  Of course that will be for the kids, not me!

Yesterday Shannon decided to burn.  Nothing sings spring quite like burning ~ I am not sure why, it just does.  Robins were chirping away, boys were having sword fights, the girls were poking absentmindedly at the coals, Shannon was envisioning all the new wildlife that would be on our property this year since we were clearing feeding space for them.  I thought he was cleaning brush up just for me, but alas, he had an ulterior motive.

Mmmm, new willows will bring in more moose ~

That's the idea anyway ~

If I hide behind this willow, Mom won't notice me drinking her hot chocolate ~

Hot dogs only taste good outside !

Nicholas just jammed his fourth dog in his mouth.....yyyyuck.

Hatching Chickens #2

Sooo ~ we candled the eggs Wednesday evening and they all looked empty to my hurried and unrefined eye. We placed them back in the incubator to deal with the following morning.
Joshie & I decided it would be good to crack one open to see if it was even fertilized, thus indicating whether we had a rooster issue or an incubator issue.  As soon as the egg broke I knew we had made a mistake.  In the middle of the container was the smallest of chics with its' heart beating rapidly away.
This sight cued an immediate response from Josh, "You killed the baby chicken, Mom!"
The thought briefly crossed my mind to open another egg so the other kiddos could see what a miracle LIFE is, (any life, even a little ole chicken)  but decided against it.
I could only handle playing the villain once and besides it seemed a bit, well, just wrong.

This is a not-so-good picture of an egg ~ The chic is the dark spot in the egg.

We could see the veins growing along the interior of the shell but they didn't photo well.

Kath thinks she saw the chic wiggling a little bit.