Easter

I've got a little catching up to do. Easter for us was one week later than for everyone else. (Eastern Orthodox Christians celebrate Easter according to a different calendar than Western Christians. It's complicated. Google it.) When it's later we usually get great deals on Easter candy, but this year was almost a disaster, because stores apparently didn't stock as much candy as they usually do. Many of the stores had no Easter candy the day of Western Easter! But I scrounged up enough by going around to all the different stores.

We had the kids paint Easter eggs this year by just using water colors. It worked pretty well.



The Church services were Saturday night, so we took the kids in their pjs and brought pillows and blankets so they could sleep in the back of the Church. Gregory managed to go to sleep after the transition from his bed to the car to the Church:


Emmie, on the other hand, did not:


Stephen's Godmother held him through quite a bit of the service, so we were actually able to participate in a good deal of it. Our Priest's daughter, Teagan, has taken to mothering Emmie quite a bit these days, so with Gregory sleeping we enjoyed an unusally degree of independence. (All children attend Church service in Eastern Orthodoxy, so we are usually chasing the kids around trying to keep them in some minimum degree of control.) We appreciate that greatly, especially during the Easter services. The hymns and readings are so beautiful. ("The angel cried to the Lady Full of Grace: Rejoice, O Pure Virgin! Again I say: Rejoice! Your Son is risen from His three days in the tomb! With Himself He has raised all the dead! Rejoice, all you people!")

Early the next morning the kids woke us up so they could have their Easter baskets full of candy:


They proceeded to eat gobs of candy:



(The parents consumed a fair amount, as well.)

Then in the early afternoon we got the kids dressed in their Easter outfits and headed to Church for a service and, of course, an Easter egg hunt where they would get more candy. Gregory had some new slacks and a button-up shirt. Emmie was wearing her beautiful dress that her Aunt bought for her. As we pulled into the Church parking lot (late, of course), Emmie proceeded to vomit all of her chocolate candy onto her pretty new dress.

Well.

Of course we didn't have a change of clothes for her, so while Gregory ran around the Easter egg hunt in his nice Easter outfit, Emmie did so in a towel and her diaper:



Stephen, meanwhile, slept through most of it:


All in all, it was a blessed Easter. It was the first time we talked in depth with Gregory about what it was all about. Death is not an easy subject to talk with a four year old about. He knows that it's a sad thing that Jesus died on the cross, and a happy thing that he rose from the dead. I'm thinking that's a pretty good start.