Happy Easter!

 Christ is risen! Indeed He has risen!

 I love to reflect on the union of souls between Our Lord and His Mother. I can easily imagine the immense joy when Jesus appeared to His Mother after His Resurrection.  She, of course, did not accompany the Holy Women to the tomb as Our Lady listened to all He said, including that He would rise in 3 days.

 The Easter Fire and the Easter Vigil Mass.

 Blessing of the Easter Waters

 After 2 hours on Palm Sunday, 1-1/2 hours on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, 1-1/2 hours on Good Friday, 2-1/2 hours at the Easter Vigil, 1-1/2 hours on Easter Sunday as well as numerous altar boy practices, we were all tired.....

 ..... yet overjoyed!

 This year I tied strings to the baskets and hid them up in the loft. The girls were much quicker to find there as the first ones I hid were boys' baskets. Although I grouped most of them together by the time I found 6 different hiding places, I was sore, aching and tired after spending I-don't-know-how-much-time twisting and intertwining strings. By the time I got to the girls' baskets, they were much less complex. So here the girls are waiting for the boys.  Or... it could be that the girls are just more skilled at basket-finding.

 Eager anticipation. 

 I received several beautiful family pictures from families for Easter, this will have to do for us because, as usual, someone had to get sick. And, a week later, we still have not gotten a picture, nothing to do with the odd ball weather we've been having.

 Ok, so we are now proud owners of a king-sized "Noopy and Charlie Brown" pillow. Kili cannot say the blend "sn" so when we tried to get him to say "Snoopy" he kept saying, with great trouble, "Noospy" but knowing that wasn't right he opted for "Noopy". *chuckle*

 I couldn't resist this really awesome-in-a-catalog giant Easter Egg.

 Aragorn did the carving, of course. (the bulk of us preferring a civilized kitchen knife by dad over a jack-knife by one of the boys....)

 Cute enough (though not as cute as it was in the catalog), however, when we first opened it, these little candies were all neatly packaged in plastic. It lost the cuteness.

 Some do the Easter Bunny, we got Easter pigs :D  These pigs are much larger than the pigs we bought a couple weeks ago.

 More magic tricks

 I really like pictures that tickle my funny bone. Sam sent this one to me. We shan't wonder why this car with a washing machine in its trunk has a dent in its side. Probably someone gaping at this spectacle!

 However, this is how Sam received many-a double-take while driving down the Interstate with a culvert on his over-sized-lengthened truck.  

 An April Fools day joke came a day late in the form of bizarre weather.

 Not only did we have snow (no we don't live in the Arctic) but the weather fluctuated between snowflakes, bright sunshine, blinding blizzard, blinding sunshine, back and forth. I happened to be out and about during part of this. I was driving down a road near us and it was brilliantly sunny and off in the distance it was a very strange gray and I thought it was odd to see the edge of fog, but then as I turned down the next road it was literally a blizard with 6" piles of snow.  Then when I pulled in our driveway it was brilliantly sunny. It was the strangest weather day I've ever seen.

So, while I was out, it was get-stock-in-socks purchase day.  (groan) I found these adorable knee shocks and when I got home and went to match them there were no 2 alike (ok, in this pack of 12 socks, there were 2 that were alike). I seriously did not know they SELL socks that don't match. I can find any number of mix and matchless socks around here.  Now I need to go back and get a second pack in hopes of actually matching these socks.  I believe the lesson is to not complain about boys socks that never come out of the wash matching quite right. I think there is a conspiracy in the sock departments.