East-over 2013

Once again in our family Easter and Passover collide and are celebrated/remembered together. We had fun this year celebrating with both sides of the family and our neighbors, plus church in one day!! Marathon holidays tend to be the way we roll. 

This year we also got to experience 2 different Good Friday services. I went to the first ever GF service at our church and they did over 50 baptisms! It was wonderful!!!! Chris got to join our neighbors at their Byzantine Orthodox Catholic Church which was a somber liturgy fitting for Good Friday. Very different but both good preparation for the enormously significant celebration of Easter. 

Thanks also to our neighbors we learned the true origins of dyeing Easter eggs! Ironically, 30 minutes before we learned about this, we had JUST made up our own loose connection between eggs and new life and Jesus to explain to the kids why we were dyeing eggs. So, the real story is that way back in the day when Christians were proselytizing they came to pagan villages and as a way to effectively communicate about Christ, they'd learn some of the cultural rituals and weave the bible into them. So, when people used eggs as a symbol to celebrate new life in spring, the Christians began to decorate the eggs with Christian messages, concepts to communicate in a way that was already part of the people's culture. Our engines have books full of the elaborate designs and what they mean (every picture has deep symbolism) AND our neighbor Chuck has eggs he's painted that look like they should be in a museum! They're amazing and done with special tools and layers of wax on RAW, fragile eggs that had then blows out when the design in complete. Really impressive. So blessed to have our Easter enriched by new friends this year!

My matzoh ball soup helper :-)

Easter 2011

With Chris' side of the family I decided to host Easter Dinner at our house.  Ella REALLY wanted to have an Easter Egg Hunt so this was a good way to meet her request.  It went really well! As you will see in the pictures, Nancy bought beautiful dresses and suits for all 6 grandkids!  We had LOTS of people which I will list here for my own remembering...(which I don't do well sans lists)

Phil, Nancy, Jean
Dave & Julie
Amy, Matt, Hannah, Christopher
Andrew, Ping, Silas, Eva, Lao-Lao, Lao-Ye
Matt D
Liz, Connor, Sam, and Sophie Nixon

I'm in love with this shot of Sadie Amy captured.  Beautiful!!

It started POURING about 5 minutes after the mad dash for the 90 or so candy filled eggs the dads hid in the yard

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So happy to have Ping's parents visiting from China for a few months!

Chris' grandmother loves getting time snuggling Sadie

I "caught" Christopher and Sam (who just met that day) sitting in Sadie's room reading her board books and giggling-so cute!

 

 

 

 

Carrot Cake!

 Probably like most people, I get really excited when I see something that looks really cool and that I'd like to do....and then actually do it! This cake was one of those great situations where I loved something in a magazine and it was the right mix of easy, cheap, and fun to make it happen :-) 

Start off with a nice, frozen Sara Lee Pound cake (unless you're an overachiever and want to make your own)

Cut off a couple inches from one end and then 2 wedges off the sides.

Add some yellow and red food coloring to white icing until you get an orange you like

Use icing to "glue" on the wedges to make a point at one end.  Let your husband eat the flat end you cut off (at least that's what I did :-) )

Ice the whole thing

Gather your orange jelly beans-sooo pretty!

Start laying 'em on (and if you're me, let go of any hopes of perfection)

Ella had fun helping with almost all of the steps but the jelly-beaning was the easiest for her to help with :-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lay out some green candy for the stem and...Ta-da! It was a hit at our Easter Celebration and a fun project with Ella.

Peep Adventure!!!

The weekend before Easter we took advantage of really good deal on Certifikid for what we started calling our "Peep Adventure."  It was a night in an executive suite at the Gaylord National Harbor and admission to a bunch of different Peep related activities for families.  It was SO much fun to get away and we were treated like royalty by the Gaylord staff!  We even were handed gift bags with stuffed animal peep chicks, candy, a schedule of events, tickets for events and more.  Overall we had awesome family time and would love to go back for more family fun events at National Harbor!

Sadie checking out our fancy bedroom

Our first activity was gingerbread Easter Candy Houses

See the 2ft tall Peep on the top balcony?  That was one of many we found on the Peep Scavenger Hunt :-)

Sadie was fascinated by the Giant Peep!

It was pouring outside when the Easter Egg Hunt was scheduled so they did it inside.  Ella still had a blast.

Fun Mommy-daughter time on our sleepover at the hotel

Chris and Ella hid behind the curtains to watch the crazy thunder storms over the Wilson Bridge-it was a perfect spot!

Brunch the next morning was awesome.  So. Tasty. Though I must say, Sadie did NOT sleep well on our little trip away :-(  But, it was only one night so it wasn't too bad.  She was pretty happy even being somewhat sleep deprived.

I'm a sucker for topiaries :-)  So glad the rain cleared up by our second day there.

It's an impressive hotel even from outside!

It was a great trip that we'd definitely do again. 

He is Risen!

Easter Sunday was blessed! Church was wonderful. I can't get away from the idea that Easter is immensely significant. It's the pinnacle of our faith and I believe, the most important Holy-Day of the year. I can't decide if it's good that it gets less "hype" than other holidays (so it doesn't become even more commercialized) or if it should, at least within the Church, get more attention. Either way, it's up to me to really celebrate what God's done for me and I'm blessed to have done so! It was great to spend the morning in our home church with people we love and a place where I consistently meet with God. So thankful for that place and my Lord-the one who could take on sin for me and did. Amazing.

After church we go to spend a little time with Chris' side of the fam for a classic Easter dinner, an egg hunt, and of course pics of the cousins all dressed up :-)












When we headed home I gave Chris and Ella their Easter Baskets...


...and they were soon too into the candy to even look at the camera!


I don't blame them :-) I'm about to go get some of the leftovers right now...