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Happy Easter!  Alleluia! He is Risen!

My (long, photo dumped) Easter post here may seem late BUT just like Christmas is a season and not just one day, Easter is also not celebrated in just one day in the Church's liturgical calendar, but rather Easter is a season called Eastertide.  So keep celebrating for 50 days until Pentecost!  And if you are looking for ways to celebrate the 50 days of Easter, be sure to visit Nicole's post 50 Ways to Celebrate the 50 Days of Easter With Your Children. 


I'm jumping way ahead of myself now...more on how we celebrated Easter 2017 in a bit.   It's time to back track to the beginning of Holy Week, Palm Sunday, April 9, 2017.


On Palm Sunday, my daughters helped hand out palms outside of church and our son was one of the altar servers as the cross bearer.  The crucifix looked a bit different on Palm Sunday with a red cloth and palms branching out from it.  The Mass began outside of church for the blessing of the palms and then everyone processed into church with their palms and the continuation of the Mass.


On Monday of Holy Week, my daughters and I took advantage of the beautiful weather and headed to our local beach while my husband and son stayed home to paint a bedroom.  The girls were happy to be at the beach and not painting.  They even swam, but too cold for me!

On Monday of Holy Week, we also made homemade pretzels and read the wonderful Eric Carle book Walter the Baker that tells the humorous story of how the Lenten tradition of pretzel making came to be.



And to find the pretzel recipe, you can hop over to my original post from the archives that has a photo of the recipe.

On Tuesday of Holy Week, we visited the beautiful prayer garden that was created by a couple in my parish in their yard.  This has been an annual tradition since 2014.  The garden is open year round and all our welcome, but we usually think to visit it during Holy Week.   It's a beautiful and peaceful garden where you can pray the Stations of the Cross. I love taking photos of all the treasures that the owners have placed.  Here are photos from this year's visit to Via Cruces (Way of the Cross).

On "Spy Wednesday" of Holy Week, we remembered when Judas betrayed Jesus when he was paid 30 pieces of silver to hand Jesus over.  We have been doing this tradition since 2014 where I hide 30 quarters/dimes ("silver") and my children have to find them. It's a quick, easy activity and it's interesting to observe how my children act during it.

The handprint page in the photo above is from the binder 2 of my daughters created in 2015 called Holy Week in Handprints. I bought the printouts from Catholic Icing and we did the handprint activities to go along with each day during Holy Week.

Also on Spy Wednesday of Holy Week, we went to Tenebrae ("Darkenss") at my parish.  This is a beautiful ancient service to remind us of the dark days ahead on Good Friday and Holy Saturday.

On Holy Thursday of Holy Week our family went to Mass in the evening in celebration of the institution of the Eucharist at Jesus' Last Supper, the institution of the priesthood, and the washing of the feet.
Holy Thursday marks the beginning of the Triduum, the 3 holiest days of the Catholic Church's calendar, which includes Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday .  Be sure to visit my Holy Thursday post from the archives that gives more information about Holy Thursday and includes a beautiful video. 

On Good Friday of Holy Week, our family went to my parish to pray the Stations of the Cross at noon, then went back to church at 3PM for the service of the Passion of our Lord and the veneration of the cross.  Did you know that Good Friday is the ONLY day of the entire year that Masses are not celebrated around the world?   We still have communion at Good Friday service, but the bread is consecrated and saved from Holy Thursday Mass to be distributed on Good Friday.  The altar is stripped bare and the crucifix and statues remain covered with cloth to symbolize mourning and longing to see our Risen Lord on Easter Sunday.   Here is a beautiful Good Friday reflection from my archives.   And these 9 Things You Need to Know about Good Friday is informative and insightful.
After noon Stations of the Cross on Good Friday, we came home and had our annual Symbolic Lunch for Good Friday that we have been doing since 2014.
If you read about the list of ingredients and what they symbolize from my 2014 post, you'll see why my husband and children are making funny faces in the photo above. :)

On Holy Saturday of Holy Week, we made preparations for Easter Sunday by making a few dishes for Easter lunch at my parent's house.  For Saturday morning, I made Easter themed cheese and crackers for the NICU/PICU staff and families luncheon that a group of volunteers coordinate each year. I used Easter themed cookie cutters for the cheese.

Last year I made this buttered lamb thanks to Jen's inspiration at Faith and Fabric. But, our lamb is not edible because I kept it in my fridge all year and took it out again this year and just did a few touch ups.  Ha! :)  And since I didn't have kale available I just shredded some green paper for "grass".

We also made bird's nests like I did last year that are easy and festive.

Dying eggs is always a highlight of our Easter tradtions...

And painting our salt dough crown of thorns (a Lenten tradition) gold and putting jewels on them just in time for Easter is a fun tradition we do too. 

The sacrifices that were made and the toothpicks that were pulled from the salt dough crown now turn into a beautiful gold crown and jewels to symbolize the King of Kings has risen on Easter Sunday!  Also, the sacrifice beans that were collected in our jar turn into sweet jellybeans on Easter Sunday.

On Holy Saturday we also enjoy making resurrection rolls. Besides the fact that they are delicious, I love how the marshmallows symbolize Jesus' body and you roll the marshmallow in melted butter and cinnamon/sugar (to symbolize the oils and spices rubbed on Jesus' body) and they it is wrapped into a crescent roll like Jesus was wrapped in linens. After baking the "tombs" the inside of the roll comes out hollow like Jesus' empty tomb!  For scripture references and further directions visit Catholic Icing.

Another tradition and yummy tradition we do is make Easter Story Cookies. While making the cookies you can read the Easter Story and each ingredient symbolizes a different part.   For example, the first ingredient is chopping pecans with spoons to represent Jesus' beatings and suffering. The pecans eventually are folded into the mix and represent the stones of the tomb when the cookie is finished baking.

After the batter is made, we put them in a pre-heated oven and then turn the oven off overnight. Then our children seal the tomb with tape.  On Easter morning before we go to early morning Mass (if you don't go to the Vigil Mass the night before) the tape is removed and the cookies are done!  Inside the cookies are hollow like Jesus' tomb!  They are so yummy and sweet like the sweet story of Jesus' resurrection.


Easter Sunday brought more sweet surprises, Mass with the family, gazing upon our beautiful parish decorated for Easter, a turtle find in our backyard, an egg hunt at my in-laws house and a lovely lunch in my parent's backyard.







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I am a member of the Yahoo group Christian Activity Worksheets and recently there was a message on there that had a comprehensive list of FREE Catholic Printables that are online.  Below is the list that I am posting for my own reference and to share with my readers! Thanks Laura for posting!   If you know of any more please comment and leave the link.  Thanks! 

Worksheets, Games, Bulletins, Puzzles, Booklets

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March 25th is the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord when Mary said "Yes" to God's will when the Angel Gabriel told her the exciting news that she was the mother of the Son of God! 9 months from today is when we celebrate the birth of Jesus.

We celebrated as in year's past with waffles for dinner (a Swedish tradition actually), "megaphones" to "announce" the Angelus prayer, and the table is decorated with a white candle with Baby Jesus cradled in the candle to represent how He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and lived in Mary's womb for 9 months.


In the morning of March 25th, I set up our kitchen table like this..


I put the familiar plastic white lace tablecloth over a plastic blue tablecloth.  I usually use these two tablecloths for Marian feast days because the lace looks "fancy", but it's a frugal decoration and the color blue is a traditional color for our Blessed Mother.

I made "megaphones" out of foam drinking cups so that we could "announce" the Angelus Prayer, which is a beautiful prayer about the Annunciation that we try to say each day at lunch time. I printed out artwork of the Annunciation and the first phrase of the Angelus Prayer and taped them onto the cups.


I displayed Mary: The Mother of Jesus by Tomie DePaola behind the candle.   This book has a page about the Annunciation.

I carved out a little hole at the bottom of the candle and put a plastic baby in it.  This is the same baby we use for the King Cake at our Epiphany parties and Mardi Gras.


 
The artwork on the right side of the Annunciation was painted by my oldest daughter several years ago that we have displayed in our home year round.




The other book displayed is Saints and Angels by Claire Llewellyn













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We had a simple celebration on March 17 to remember Saint Patrick, the most popular Saint in Ireland.  Did you know that St. Patrick was a mentor to Saint Brigid of Ireland? Be sure to read Here's 31 Things You Didn't Know About Saint Brigid of Ireland and 3 Simple Ways to Celebrate St. Brigid of Ireland's Feast Day: February 1 to find out more about this well-known female Saint in Ireland who lead an interesting and inspiring life as well. 


Before I tell a little more about our St. Patrick's Day this year, I thought I'd share this photo taken on March 16 to celebrate my husband's birthday.  My husband has a fraternal twin brother and I have shared a "twin photo" on past blog posts.  It was a busy day with a soccer game, soccer practice and gymnastics, but we managed to squeeze in a little celebration at Chick-fil-A and we had cupcakes.


Saint Patrick's Day morning I set out this little display on our kitchen table.


The opened book in the center is a page about Saint Patrick that I read during our Couch Catechism prayer time.  The book is titled Saints and Angels.







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It's been a little while since I posted because life is well, life. So I thought I'd catch up on some posts that I have been meaning to publish. I posted about our family's Lenten traditions and we aren't doing all the traditions this year, but many of them.

Just before Lent started, we celebrated Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, with a mini King Cake recipe that we did for the first time this year.  I usually make one big King Cake, but the mini King Cakes were easy enough for my 3 youngest daughters to enjoy making and decorating with a few friends. 

   
Using 2 cans of Cinnamon rolls (we bought ours from Trader Joe's), we unrolled them and braided the long dough strands and then shaped them into circles for a crown.


After baking the mini King Cakes and icing them with the can icing, my daughters and her friends used sugared sprinkles to decorate each one.


I must say this took a lot less time and the girls had fun making and decorating their mini King Cakes this year.  I'll have to remember this for next year!

A family Lenten tradition we have done for years is the salt dough crown of "thorns" (toothpicks).  Here are a few of this year's photos with my 2 youngest daughters making the dough before we braided it and baked it.


The crown looks like this after it is braided and baked and each sacrifice that our children make during Lent they pull out a "thorn" from Jesus' crown of thorns. During Holy Week close to Easter this crown is decorated with gold paint and jewels to symbolize all the sacrifices we made during Lent for Jesus as we celebrate the resurrection of the King of Kings at Easter!








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Lent 2017 is in full swing so I thought I'd share my latest EpicPew post...

It’s that time of year again when ashes in the shape of crosses are found on foreheads throughout the world to make it the official start of the liturgical season called Lent.


Read more at 40 Facts You Wished Everyone Knew About Lent. Which facts are new to you?  :)

Speaking of EpicPew posts, below are the posts I have written so far for EpicPew that have been published in case you missed them....Enjoy!









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