This year I made one big family Easter basket, which included dyed eggs, candy, and one felt saint doll each for the children (from this wonderful seller). I included far too much candy and feel ridiculous about it now, so remind me not to do that again!
I chose Our Lady with her Immaculate Heart and St. Francis of Assisi. The craftsmanship is exquisite!
Each doll has a saint-specific prayer on the back. Mary grabbed hers up, carrying it around like a baby and shrieking, "baby! baby! baby!"
Breakfast after Easter Mass: Mary was happy once she was allowed to eat!
I served toast (with my homemade bread), hash brown patties (frozen), scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese, and berries (frozen--and learned that those don't thaw well) with homemade whipped cream.
After breakfast, we did an egg hunt in the back yard.
Mary was one tough cookie and needed little instruction on how this whole egg-hunt thing worked.
After kitchen clean-up and naps, we took the kids to a big egg hunt at Belmont Abbey, the first time the college had organized such an event. You can see the many eggs hidden on the athletic field. John got to hunt with the kids age two through four.
It was cute enough, but the organizers need to work out some kinks. The mad dash of the egg hunt lasted about ten minutes and then that was that, but the event was scheduled to last two hours. Also, the candy in the plastic eggs wasn't appropriate for the age group. Nonetheless, the kids are too young to have noticed any problems!
After the egg hunt, we went for a walk at the nature preserve before coming back home. In the evening, I cooked an Easter dinner that was mostly a disaster. I made scalloped potatoes that were still inedibly hard after an hour, so they delayed the rest of the meal while I cooked them just long enough to be edible (but still not soft enough). For the pork chops, the caramelized apples were too hard while being burnt black. My peas were boring. I made chicken nuggets and boxed macaroni and cheese as a special treat for John so he'd really enjoy Easter dinner and it could be one night that wouldn't include a food battle, but John refused to eat anything! All he ate today was toast with cream cheese and about one-quarter cup of M&Ms at breakfast--nothing for the rest of the day. That made my mama's heart quite sad on Easter of all days.
The little felt saints are adorable! I've liked the look of the small wood saints Jessica has made: http://showerofroses.blogspot.com/2008/09/alphabet-of-saints.html, but I think there are a touch too small for play. I also love the saints from Catholic Folk Toys (http://catholicfolktoys.com/), but I think the felt may win my favorite vote!
ReplyDeleteLooks like you had a nice Easter. We did too: backyard egg hunt, dinner with family, and DS2 did so well at Mass! Ours was candy-free as usual, and I highly recommend it! ;-)
thought it may make you feel better that John ate way healthier than Ben yesterday! He had a little chocolate egg in the morning from his basket, refused the pancakes, bacon and hashbrowns at breakfast. He had a few bites of a donut after Mass. Refused any Easter dinner and refused even his beloved yogurt. Then he had chocolate cake and chocolate ice cream. Maddening. But it was a holiday so I let it go.
ReplyDeletebreakfast looks so yummy. Those saints are precious!
ReplyDeleteI can't believe we didn't see you at Belmont Abbey! It was a bit of a mad dash for the 2-4 year olds.. We had to wait longer to start than the whole thing lasted! Joseph only "found" 5 eggs, none of which had candy. (I was glad for that.)
ReplyDeleteSarah: How funny that we didn't see you at the egg hunt! Be glad Joseph's eggs didn't have candy in them: it was stuff like Laffy Taffy and blue Tootsie Rolls.
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