Thursday, April 16, 2015

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Five Faves: Easter Weekend

Linking up with Jenna again today, to tell you a bit about our Easter Weekend!



I'm not gonna lie, Holy Week was a doozy for me.   Our oldest Circus clown serves at pretty much every service during the Triduum, and that made for lots of hurry-up-and-waiting for us at the Circus.   Lots of scrambling to get kids up from naps and dressed and ready to go.....just to go wrangle them in a pew while big brother helped to prepare the church.   A couple times, I managed to sneak out on my own and leave the rest of the rascals with Mike, but there was still a lot of hurry-up-and-wait for that, too.  Didn't want to leave the poor man without a packed diaper bag or dressed-up little girl!!  

Anywho, because I'm feeling lazy, here are my five favourite things from this weekend.....




1.



Dyeing Easter Eggs




I don't know if Theo had done this before in his home country, but this was his first time doing it with us.  I'm pretty sure it was the highlight from my weekend - he would squeal with laughter (loud, pure joy kind of squeals) every time the white egg came out of the cup of dye a bright colour.   Loved loved loved it.












2.

"Egging" our Friends







I'm only able to tell you about it here because they all figured it out, but after Easter brunch, we loaded up the clowns and snuck to a couple of friend's houses and "egged" their yards.   A sign and 12 plastic eggs were quickly placed in their yard and then (if they were home), one of the boys did the whole "ring the doorbell and run" trick to the waiting getaway car.  Lots of giggles, lots of smiles, and just a fun way to spend the afternoon as a family.   I hope it catches on and that next year we are joined by some friends!





3.


Opening the Pool






The chemicals were finally perfect, the pool was finally clean, and the water was finally 84ยบ degrees, so on Easter afternoon (after the egging), we jumped in!  So much fun, right in our backyard!   We've been back a couple of times a day since jumping in over the weekend, and every time I find myself so incredibly happy to see the kids playing and goofing off together.   We are so very lucky.





4.


The Easter Vigil



source


This is actually a picture from a previous year (last year, maybe?), but it was just as beautiful this year.  I absolutely love our church - the building itself is just so amazingly beautiful - and the Easter Vigil really shines (haha, literally!).   You can't help but gasp in response to the light spreading through the congregation.  I love it.  Favourite mass of the year, by far.





I also love seeing how my kids see the Vigil.  Every year, I give the littles ones crayons and a blank book ($1 spot, Target!), and I tell them to draw what they see.   We never allow them to bring toys/things into church normally, so this is a BIG DEAL for them and they take it pretty seriously.   This year, the candles seemed to be the focus of the littlest clowns....





5.

Just getting to spend time with the family



I know it's cheesy, but just being able to spend time, at home, with the whole family and do fun things like Easter eggs or brunch or watching basketball games (Go State!) or movies or swimming or going to the vigil together was the highlight of weekend for me.  It's nice to know that Mike isn't going to get paged away from us or we don't have schoolwork hanging over our heads.  I hope your Easter was as relaxing and enjoyable as ours was!



Happy Easter from the Circus!