Despite my genuine reverence for Easter, in the back of my mind I can't avoid thinking of the holiday as "Hamster" sometimes. When Abby was three or four, the Easter/Hamster confusion was part of a string of word mix-ups. (There was a boy in her park class named Oscar who she believed was named Whisker, and confusion over titles like "Narnicles of Chronia" and "How the Chimp Stole Christmas", for example).
Easter 2011 was lovely. Of course, there were also a few typical Jackson moments. We began on Good Friday by attending a "children and family" church service. The children were invited to do a craft at the conclusion, a search-and-find thing. Mira was given a plastic bird feeder tube filled with bird seed, into which she dropped various items representing the Easter story. (A small rock represented the stone that was rolled away from the tomb, for instance). I think the idea was that once all of the objects were mixed into the birdseed and the tube was sealed up, the kids could shake it and try to visually locate the various Easter items. Unfortunately, one of the objects in the tube was an M&M (because M&Ms were served at the Last Supper? I never did find out what it was supposed to represent). It was too tempting for Madame Sweet Tooth. She pried the top of the tube off in the three minutes it took to drive home from church, spraying the van and its passengers with birdseed. To top it off, as I stood freezing in nylons and heels vacuuming out the van in the garage, she located my cup of coffee in the house and polished it off. Because she needed that caffeine energy boost.
We dyed eggs that night. Mira discovered that the fun is all in the dipping - and re-dipping, re-dipping, re-dipping. In all the years we've been dyeing Easter eggs I don't ever remember ending up with a final color that can only be described as "dog bile," but Mira managed it. With all three of her eggs.
We had Easter brunch at my mom's and Easter dinner at Randy's sister's house. The kids did an Easter egg hunt at Mom's house. Mira's hunt was the standard deal, but the older three had to decode word clues to find their next egg. The Big Kid got impatient trying to use his sugar-high'ed brain (throwing out wild guesses like "Beryllium Titanium" for "Behind the butter" - really, Ethan?), and decided to blindly turn the house upside instead of thinking, but eventually all the eggs were uncovered. We all stuffed ourselves silly at both meals (I mean, it was a holiday. I was obligated). The double celebration with family on both sides was really nice.
Some pics:
On the way to "bile"
Easter "do"
Back view
Ethan trying to get out of the picture with me. He's passed me up!
Egg hunt
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