Eggs and Pretzels

On Good Friday, we did more house cleaning in the morning,

then made our way to church for noon services

and spent the afternoon dyeing eggs and baking pretzels.

 Matthew was the keeper of the FranMan for these festivities.

 We kept it pretty simple and just used crayons and rubber bands.

Marianna had a little help from Johnny.

 Then we moved on to making homemade pretzels.

 I haven't done this since Joe, Tim and Stephen were little tots.

 Lots of kitchen help on this one!

 Forgot to take a picture of the finished pretzels

but they were really yummy.

The dyeing didn't turn out too bad considering we used brown eggs.

(I just couldn't see buying eggs when we have 10 dozen from our own chickens!)

Holy Week Happenings

Here's some of the fun we've had this week...

We've done some cleaning.

Worked over our favorite Last Supper puzzle.

 Marianna and Francis helped ...

 make a craft for Holy Thursday.

Andrew kept them in line and...

finished the project.

 Then all of the kids decided to use up some old shoe boxes...

 and make scenes from the resurrection

(This one is Therese's.)

and the crucifixion.

(This is Andrew's.)

Therese's centerpiece for our Holy Thursday dinner.

March Madness

 A little spectacle trading with Mommy.

An afternoon tea!

Retreat

A quick midweek birthday for a certain 8yo.

 Some outdoor fun with a favorite teddy bear.

School...

school...

and more school.

 And yep, that would be school, too.

A recent Garfield cartoon binge.

Lots of made up game warfare.

He wants a bead necklace, too!

Still plunking away at the Algebra.

Oh happy day, he got a bead necklace, too!

The new Princess Leia look.

Can we eat outside now?

The making of a 1st Communion banner...

with a big sib helper.

After dumping out every box and bucket of toys,

it's time to march around the house with a bow tie on.

Now that's real March Madness!

Adventuring

With the warmer weather, the kids have been outside playing

and hiking through the woods.

Matthew took these pictures the other day.