Lent and Easter

Well hello happy readers. Long time no see! I hope you are having a wonderful Easter. We sure are.


I hope you didn't miss me too much over Lent.
Here's a brief overview of what happened for us these past 40+ days:

We ordered an 8th of cow, and it arrived the first Friday of Lent. Patrick and I thought that was so funny that we took a picture of all the delicious grass-fed beefy goodness. And tucked it away in our deep-freeze 'til the Solemnity of St. Joseph. Sigh.

Speaking of which:

We did the St. Joseph altar for the first time. There are three tiers representing the Holy Family, and of course the Blessed Trinity. Various feasting foods including fava bean salad (it's a tradition with the Sicilians in honour of St. Joseph blessing their fava crop after a time of serious drought), rolls in the shape of carpenter's tools, wine and of course the long-awaited steak from Getaway Farms. Yum. Oh yes, and cream puffs. So good.

(In the interest of you realizing I am not a little domestic queen -- something I always want to remind you of, because I kind of detest when bloggers make themselves sound so perfect -- my parents were there the evening of this feast. Yes, I prepared much of the food in advance and assembled the altar, but my dad grilled the steaks and my mom entertained the children while I filled the cream puffs. Because no. woman. can. do. it. all. herself. So there you have it.)

 

We had a Holy Thursday feast. Lamb. Challah. Pudding.

Noah really got into Lent. He decided he wanted to give up blueberry muffins after hearing Patrick and I talking about giving stuff up. Naturally we thought he had no idea what this meant, and was going to expect MORE blueberry muffins on Ash Wednesday. That morning when he started to shout "I need to give up blueberry muffins!" over and over I wondered what he was trying to tell me.  I did give him one, thinking -- obviously! -- that I wasn't going to expect a three-year-old to do penance.  He took it over to the Statue of the Sacred Heart and put it at His feet.

"I gave them up for Jesus," he told me.

When I explained to him that at Holy Thursday Mass, Daddy would be getting his feet washed, and we read about it in his kid's Bible, he asked if he could wash Isaiah's feet "and his hands and his head!" (like St. Peter says to Christ).

(Also worth making a disclaimer: Noah isn't a little St. Dominic Savio floating around all day in prayer. He like every little kid is defiant at times, misbehaves at Mass, and can be tiring at times. I'm just sharing the happy and touching memories of this Lent / Easter with our kids, because I just don't want to sit around complaining about the small things that frustrate me.)

We "planted" an Easter garden with dug up weeds from our yard and moss we peeled off a stone outside. You can see the little plasticine tomb in the top right corner.

And I made little peg people to put in the garden to act out the Easter story. They were very simple to make -- all glue gun and felt scraps. You can read a more thorough description, and see much cuter looking peg dolls at my friend Erin's blog.

(from left: St. Mary Magdalene, the angel, a soldier, Jesus, Mary the Mother of God. Next year I hope to make a few more soldiers and at least one more person, St. John, because he stood at the foot of the cross.)

Noah enjoyed playing with these little dolls so much.

Holy Week was full of baking, cleaning, and then the Triduum. My favourite part of the year. It was great bringing the children with us, even if it was a bit hectic. They both, in their own tiny kid ways, got something out of the liturgies, even if it was just a sense of fascination with the candles at the Vigil. (It really is such a beautiful Mass, isn't it? )

Easter Sunday we had to shovel our walkway to get to my parents's home! We had about four inches of snow! And in true Nova Scotia fashion, it rained later that day and it looked like spring again the next morning.

We ate a lot -- a LOT -- of food on Easter Sunday and every other day of the Octave. Lindors, babkha (an Eastern European Easter bread), meat and cheese, and more and more Lindors. Joyous! We hunted Easter eggs, sang Alleluia over and over and listened -- err are currently listening to as I type! -- this song on repeat.

Happy Easter!