Easter in New Jersey

 You'll never guess where they hid the Easter eggs!

Ok, to be fair, the eggs were hidden in the yard.

Actually, we were helping Mumpy and Pa change their toilet seats while we were up there.

 Which meant a fun trip to the hardware store!

Oob wearing Pa's glasses

 Which meant I found some more flowers for Mumpy and Pa's garden!


I love to plant things that flower when I can't be there.

I have to be selective though, Mumpy is allergic to many flowers, and the deer are very hungry.

Playing in the yard with Pa

This time I found a beautiful plant, but when I told the Emperor I would like to have a ranunculus, too, he gave me a strange look.

I guess it does sound like a horrible disease!

But it's not, it's a very pretty flower!

And we got to spend Divine Mercy Sunday with my folks, which was a treat!

Here are the Zoomlians at Our Lady Queen of Peace.

I love this statue- it looks like a real mother and baby to me!

Poem of the Week

A Shropshire Lad  2: Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

By A. E. Housman

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

 

HT: Poetry Foundation

Gem and Mineral Show

 Catching up with things we've been doing: a few weeks ago, we went to the Gem and Mineral show

We love talking to the people there about rocks and fossils!

Choclo is looking at all the whale and dolphin fossils from the people who got us started looking for shark's teeth.

They gave me a ray pavement!

I hadn't realized that all those ray plates I had found actually fit together to form a pavement.


Klenda got to polish a gem stone.

 We oohed and aahed over rock collections of every size and shape, and of course we added to our collection.

They had lots of free specimens for kids - mostly common pretty rocks like pyrite, citrine, mica and amethyst.


But we also bought  a mosasaur tooth (very large marine reptile from the time of the dinosaurs), and (another) megalodon tooth as well as some other interesting minerals.

I also got a jeweler's loupe equipped with an LED, like a cross between a magnifying glass and a microscope.  Fantastic for looking at crystal structures, of course, but interesting for looking at shells, starfish, bones, seeds, leaves... you get the idea.

Happy More Easter

Gotta love octaves!  It's still Easter for 8 whole days, and then the Easter season for 50!

Pass the peeps! (No, actually, even I have had enough peeps.  Another chocolate bunny, however...)

If this was the lentiest Lent, this may be the easteriest Easter.  Jesus rose from the dead and the grave is not our home.  Death and sadness are a door with life and joy on the other side!

 The other day we finally got back to the library. We took out 71 books (75 is the limit) and still had time to visit the playground.

It's spring!

It's Easter!

Christ has risen!

Why You Shouldn't Smile

I did NOT think the pun was funny.

Surprised!

 When you take pictures of your kids, do you want just one picture of everyone-smiling-nicely-with-their-eyes-open-and-is-that-too-much-to- ask?

It is.

But, really, most of the time, that's what I'm looking for.

Dramatic

You ate what?

But sometimes, I ask the kids not to smile.

 I ask them to look surprised, scared, worried, angry, silly, or anything else I (or they) can think of.
 

 And I always get fantastic pictures!

Really?

I print out 8 or 9 "emotion" pictures for each kid and slip it into the binder with their six month sheets.

So fun!

My head is going to explode!

Wordless Wednesday: Magnolia Picnic

A Very Late April Fool

 April first fell during Holy Week, but we still left some time for fooling around.

For breakfast, I served the kids these delicious eggs and bacon!




Choclo is skeptical for a reason: the "eggs" are vanilla pudding and apricot halves, and the "bacon" is a smear of apple butter.

Still pretty yummy!


For lunch I made spaghetti and meatballs...soup!




And then, for dinner, I surprised them with actual bacon and eggs.


 Also very yummy.

Plus it looks like a smiley face to me!

Easter Monday

 Easter Monday, tired but happy.

 Rice crispy treat "sushi" which worked out well but was time consuming to make.

I squished the rest of the crispy rice into our lamb cake pan, and made eyes and a nose out of jelly beans.  So cute!


Until the head sort of fell apart. So creepy!

I had so much sugar, I can't look a peep in the eye.

Our family's three girls born in 2002

 But it really was a lovely time.

I wonder if there's any of Klenda's tiramisu cake left...

Happy Easter

Good Friday

A few resources to help kids focus today:

I really liked these lift the flap Stations of the Cross from Catholic Inspired (worth the hassle of the free sign up)

Good Friday coloring pages, activity pages, and crafts.

More from our archives.

Forgive (Good Friday) from worshiphousemedia on GodTube.

HT: God Tube