Feast Day: Divine Mercy Sunday

Today, Easter Sunday is done for this year. For Catholics, Easter Sunday is such an important day in the liturgical calendar that it actually breaks the world's schedule and extends for an eight-day period! Honestly! (Also, the "Easter Season" goes on thru Acension and on to Pentecost -- 50 days AFTER Easter Sunday -- so we've got quite a few "partying" days left).

I thought this was an appropriate day to post a bit about our Lenten practices this year and our Easter Sunday (that lasted 8 days!):

Here is the calendar I posted so the family could focus on different events, readings and schedule of Lent. I marked all the feast days (that interrupt the fasting of Lent) -- such as St. Patrick's or St. Joseph's days -- and the fasting times. On each day, I put the appropriate liturgical readings and any other pertinent information. There is a little picture of two boys walking that we moved each day to mark our Lenten journey. This seemed to help the kids remember that although Lent is LONG, it is not endless and that there is a "happy" ending -- the happiest ending for all mankind!
Here is our Lenten table. The alms box (for Catholic Relief Services) was center-stage the whole Lent -- we all added to the box when we could (in secret) and dad would take the offerings to school each week. The red hexagonal box holds the kids' rosaries for evening prayer. The flowers remind us that Easter (and Spring) are coming ... we tried to keep fresh ones there throughout Lent. The purple cloth is for the penitence and sorrow of what lies ahead for Jesus during Holy Week.

Here is a close-up of the knitted "nest" I designed. Based on a smaller design from Hannah Fettig's Closely Knit (a great book with sensational ideas), I knit from the center out and made a family-sized version so we could ...use it on Easter Sunday for our family basket. Here it's filled with goodies -- peeps (for the annual peep wars!), jelly-beans, chocolate eggs, DVDs, games and even a drawing book, and of course "custom-designed" hardboiled eggs surrounding the whole. The cloth is one I embroidered back in 2001 for a special Easter Basket that was blessed at Church the year we did the Byzantine "Great Lent". (BTW, for my knitted nest directions, check out my knitting blog, By Hand, With Heart for a free Easter gift to you ....)

0-dark-30 Easter Monday (or 3:45 a.m.!) we headed out to visit relatives down in South Carolina -- and the 8.5 hour drive was so worth it as we so LOVE these folks down there. The kids have fun, dh and I are surrounded by those who love and respect us, and it is just a wonderful time. BamBam finally ventured out on his 2-wheeler (without training wheels) and felt the sense of freedom only learning to ride a bike can give! A few days of R&R was just what we need ... and we hit the road back here on Thursday, just in time to check out potential houses (God willing, the house in Colorado closes on May 11th!) on Friday.

We finished up the week with a spectacular Easter Saturday: a day of fun-in-the-sun with our favorite Chaplain at the Nationals game against the Marlins. Unfortunately, they lost (9-6 in the 11th inning) but the day (and company) were so fabulous, we didn't mind too much ...

Here are some photos of the big day (the first time for us at the Nationals Stadium):Sipping on cokes ...munching on hotdogs and chips ....and stuffing our faces with cotton candy (and yes, those two ate the whole bucket -- while the rest of us ate ice cream!)A great time was definitely had by all!Divine Mercy Sunday (today) found us down at St. Patrick's in Spotsylvania for Divine Mercy Sunday Mass ... and a wonderful reminder from the parochial vicar there to NEVER forget that God's mercy is bigger than ANY sin (or sins) we can commit. All we need do is ask for His forgiveness and follow the right path ... and we will live with Him and the Saints for eternity!

Happy Divine Mercy Sunday to you and yours ... and enjoy the next 42 days of the Easter Season!

Christmas: on the sixth day of Christmas ...

... my dear love gave to me ...

a batch of his world-famous, olive-oil oatmeal-raisin-craisin cookies! These things are the best (especially since I didn't have to make them, bake them or clean up after 'em!). Dh loves to cook but I'm usually the baker ... except for these delicacies!

The olive oil makes all the difference for really good oatmeal cookies ... I guess ... as they sure are much better than mine ever taste.

Here's one tray piping hot from the oven ...

Ok, I'm back from taste-testing: yep, they're good....

The rest of our day was just relaxing -- first a trip for ALL of us to the dentist (all got a clean-bill; me, I have to have a crown put in; I blame having kids, dh blames my age!). The rest of the day spent relaxing and doing odd bits'n'pieces and enjoying this amazing weather.

Dinner? Oh, have I told you about my favorite SIL and her husband who live in SC but came to visit us this past Fall? Well, the darlin' couple sent us a gift card to the best, bar none, hamburger joint: Five Guys. If you are lucky enough to have a Five Guys near you, and you haven't been there yet -- stop reading and GO! These are the best ... from our best SC buddies ... and we had a wonderful, easy, tasty and relatively healthy dinner (including the awesome cajun-french fries ... WOW!).

Off to eat some more oatmeal cookies and enjoy one of the Dickens' movies dh got from Santa -- he got both the first collection AND the second collection and we're so enjoying watching these classics (even the littles are getting into them, they're that well done!).

Happy sixth day of Christmas!

Family: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving -- a day not only to give thanks to God for all our wonderful blessings and gifts, but also to give thanks for our physical and spiritual blessings.

We went down to SC this year, primarily to see our lovely middle daughter and volleyball pro who is away at Georgia Southern most of the year. We left on Wednesday late-morning and got back Saturday evening.

Here's a photoessay of the motley crew assembled down in the Carolinas for Turkey Day:

Dh and his lovely bride of 10+ years. Dh and his girls
Our 3 littles and their favorite boy-cousin Oldest sweet daughter and her family (yep, ALL boys!)
StringBean and her favorite PC cousin
Middle daughter (and amazing vball player) and her favorite cousin (they're only 2 weeks apart in age and have been best buddies forever) Sisters in spirit and attitude -- scares me just a little ....
The boys enjoying Nintendo DSes before eating Turkey
Neice and dh (only married 1yr+) Sweet southern sister-in-law and family
BIL and family

kids, nieces, nephews and grandkids with spouses but missing Brikhead and NO Boy.

Unfortunately, Nanna and Poppy (who started this motely crew) were always unavailable for pictures and so we don't see the reason for this gathering of kindreds - N&P truly are the garden soil on which this particular family continues to grow!

Thanks be to God for bringing Nanna and Poppy together over 50 years ago.

Thanksgiving is the time to remember all the people and things we're thankful for -- these are just some of the many people who help us remember how very good God is to us! We love you all (whether you're pictured here or not) and we thank God daily for our family, friends, and benefactors!

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all and know that you were remembered in our prayers on Thanksgiving Day and every day (even if LSU and Daniel High School lost games they should have won)....

We're back ...

... and in living color: Could we be smiling any wider?

We had a wonderful time visiting dear family members Ben and Noah at Fickle Creek Farm in the Piedmont of NC, dear friends at Holden Beach way down at the opposite end of NC, dear wonderful Catholic friends and homeschoolers from the Upstate of SC (yes, there are a FEW in the State and the ones we love we dearly miss but were able to catch up with a few of them), and of course THE WEDDING of the year (dh's neice got married in the Clemson, SC area).

We also headed down to Atlanta to see more family (including Kotch who will be back here in July) and then on to the Dominican Motherhouse in Nashville to see our dear friend, Sr. Mary Sarah and meet some more wonderful Dominican sisters.

It was ALOT of driving (dh did it all and I kept him awake while knitting up a storm) but good to see the family and friends we left a year ago. Unfortunately we didn't get back to the Front Range in time to attend the RMCHEC ... and missed seeing/meeting our 4real friends ... but overall, the road trip was deemed a HUGE success (and granmere even treated for dinner last night so we didn't need to cook!).

So, did you miss us?