Hallelujah! He Is Risen! (And Holy Week 2015 ROCKED!)

We did it!

We made it through Holy Week 2015 without any contagious diseases, hospital visits, dying pets, or surgeries. Thanks be to God!

We went to the Easter Vigil this year on Saturday evening, which was so great in a lot of ways (see more on that further down), but the one thing I missed was getting Sunday morning photos of the kids in their Easter outfits. Of course, their Easter outfits this year were also a little less fancy than in years past because we knew we were going to the Vigil, but whatever. 🙂

Sunday morning brought early-rising Nathan and baskets.

Since we opted out of the whole Santa deal at Christmas, we also opted out of the Easter bunny, though we did put the baskets on the porch like we used to do when we were more bunny-centric. Sarah Kate, being twelve and in no hurry to get up since we’d already been to Mass the night before, slept in, leaving her brother to retrieve both baskets.

But, hey – candy is candy no matter whether you eat it alone or with your sister, so after a quick detour into her room to attempt to rouse her (eventually giving up and leaving the basket next to her sleeping self on the bed), he plopped down on the floor and checked out the goods.

The Reese’s Pieces in a carrot bag were the biggest hit.

The cotton candy? Not so much. I don’t think he realized it was food right away.

But he did trust us when we told him to eat it.

After the cotton candy (which I think he just thought was weird), he moved on to one of my favorites – Peeps. As you can see…not a fan of the Peeps, either (more for me!)

Nathan did an egg hunt with his classmates at preschool this week and apparently they used it as a counting activity; he had a bucket full of eggs, but a note in his folder indicated how many eggs each kid in his group found, which for him was five. I automatically blamed Down syndrome for his faulty egg hunting capability.

Until I saw him hunting eggs in our yard.

He was the only one hunting, so his propensity for opening Every. Single. Egg. Every. Time. slowed down the egg finding process considerably. We eventually managed to convince him that he could open them after they were all found.

Another impediment to swift egg hunting? Distractions.

Distractions of the young dog variety, of course. Sarah Kate stepped in to assist by carrying the basket out of Gabi-reach, and the pace picked up considerably after that.

I tried to get a decent photo of Nathan with his loot but Stella kept photo-bombing, so…

Once he got all the loot inside, he opened Every. Single. Egg. and dumped the loot out on the placemat in front of him before he ate anything. It was fun to watch his little face light with up with every new treat he found inside each egg.

But the best part of the Easter weekend wasn’t the candy, or the egg hunting, or the photo of the kids I took out back. The best part was the Easter Vigil Mass, where Sarah Kate, Nathan, and I sat on the front pew and watched with pride and joy as our Mr. Andi was received into the Catholic church. Thanks be to God!

Happy Easter!