lent to easter recap

this really spoke to me this year.

 i always give up sweets, biting my nails, beer and add things like: slow to anger, donate... yada yada yada.

i'm not sure why, but i started off lent this year not feeling very motivated.

i did give up beer and biting my nails and did do 40 bags in 40 days,

but i found myself eating lots of sweets and drinking lots of margaritas.

not quite what i was going for.

so i kicked it up a notch.

no sugar, breads, alcohol (well maybe a little wine, but no more margaritas)

i felt better.

more of a struggle.

i think it's good to strive to be better and it should be hard.

the kids did really well on their lenten promises as well.

R gave up burping and little S gave up brussels sprouts. hmmm....

big S gave up sweets and L gave up instagram.

D gave up biting her nails and something else i can't remember.

Paul's motto was slow to anger.

which R gave us daily reminders.

we really enjoyed Mass holy thursday.

we attended a stations of the cross for kids friday morning on good friday.

i somehow thought P had the day off and i had planned to get out of dodge for the day

(paully wally had been out of town all week)

but that was not the case. he did have to work and i mentally checked out.

i was about to loose my marbles. but my lovely womens' group, through texting, inspired me

to turn myself and negative thinking around.

i pulled myself together and put together some craft stations for the kids.

we were gonna have a prayerful time if they liked it or not.

they actually loved it.

we prayed the sorrowful mysteries from this book.

it's a local artist from our parish and the paintings are so beautiful.

then we had 4 crafting stations.

1. the coloring and collage station

2. the embossing a metal cross station 

(found on pinterest)

3. a religious book reading station

4. we also had a letter writing station. 

each person in our family had an envelope and each person was to write one letter for each envelope.

we read the messages aloud on easter.

the kids loved doing this.

they loved reading the letters they received and even more so enjoyed hearing the letters they had written.

5. even the baby had a station.

(stickers and crayons)

R got a little carried away with the crown of thorns snack.

baby was not supposed to have one of these.

we hung our finished art on the wall.

the kids seemed calmed.

as soon as Paul got home my mama came and picked me up.

then i was calm.

and we finally made it to EASTER!!!

my mom came over early in the morning for a quick brunch

(mimosa)

and we headed to church.

3 of the girls sang in the children's choir and sounded beautiful.

the traditional after church easter pictures.

 my kids with their noni.

baby J would only participate if he could stand where he wanted. little stinker.

the whole family.

after church we headed over to brunch with my dad and step mom and sister.

it was delicious.

after brunch we headed back to our house for easter dinner and family egg hunt.

L and i had done a ton of food prepping saturday.

i made my grandma's homemade macaroni and cheese.

L made the traditional bunny cake and she also made an oreo icebox cake.

i made two batches of this chocolate sauce and it really is easy and amazing.

it's from lilluna.com

i love everything on that site.

a friend snapped these pics of my kids at the neighborhood egg hunt.

it's so fun seeing someone else's view.

anticipation from the egg toss...