Finding More Joy

I love Holy Week.  It's challenging, at times, but it keeps things focused in a way that I find harder to achieve at Christmas.  We use to have an amazing minister back in the city who knew how to "do" Holy Week like nobody else.  I can remember so many meaningful Maundy Thursday communion services, powerful Good Friday services and Easter sunrise services that really made me feel as if something fantastic had happened.  He had his eccentricities but he made it all so significant for all of us.

I love our church here but sadly, Holy Week just isn't the same.  I don't want to find another church so we are trying to make Easter more special.  I'm going to seem a bit like a hypocrite when I say that I want Easter to be focused on Jesus and than share photos of Easter bunny activities.  Honestly, there is a purpose to this.  Pk and Lb get treats and so I have made it a mission of mine to be sure that whenever they are getting, they are giving, as well.  We have done eggs for all of their good friends and we thought that last night would be a fun time for delivery.  Pk had the brilliant idea of wearing her bunny ears and Lb actually joined in the spirit of it all.  Other than a few moments of wanting to kill when milk was spilled all over the basket of eggs and caused some of the ink to run on the tags, we had a lot of fun.  My life seems to be overfull of those kinds of frustrations at the moment, which I why I am trying to hard to find the joy.  As you can see form the pics, we had a great time!

Another aspect of my attempts for make Easter Week special was our special Maundy Thursday dinner.  In the past, I have tried doing a Christian seder dinner, which can be meaningful but, as the kids are so young, usually ends up in being a bit of a exercise in frustration.  This year, I decided to simplify.  We watched out DVD Bible segment on Holy Week and I discussed the Last Supper with the kids while we watched.  During dinner, we included bread and "wine" on the menu and drank for special cups and we discussed why we would do that.  Pk remembered watching our ministers break the bread at church during communion and she wanted to do that too.

We ended the evening with some baking.  It was fun but also highly unsuccessful - we tried to make coconut macaroons as nests for our eggs.  Sadly, they ran all over the place and I discovered that Pk hates the smell of coconut (and was less than gracious about it).  At least we had fun.

This was probably the loveliest moment of the day - I love how much Pk loves her little rabbit.  I went in to take a photo of Pk and our friend's dog who is staying with us and when I uploaded the photos, I noticed the scruffy little rabbit face peeking out.  Everyone needs a friend like that.