Easter Triduum

On Holy Thursday the little boys woke up extra early to build their Lego church for the weekend.  :)  They wanted to surprise me!  Parts of the church were from a kit, but most of it they built themselves.  I love it.  (And I am so happy that the Marvel/Star Wars guys are getting right with the Lord.)

We have taken prayer walks every night for over a week around 4:00-4:30.  I love it so much.  We come home and get supper on the table and everyone has gotten the wiggles out. 

I didn't mean for this to blur out everything but Anastasia, but it is neat.

Reaching for the moon and stars as always-

After supper, we watched our Church's Holy Thursday liturgy and then worked a puzzle of The Lord's Supper.  (We figured out it was the hardest puzzle in the world!  The entire border was two rows of black pieces- impossible for us to complete!)

Good Friday morning we did a grocery run.  :)  Strange times, indeed.

On Good Friday we had a quiet, reflective day and worked together to make potato soup.

We prayed and meditated on the Stations of the Cross.

We "made" hot cross buns.

 We took our daily walk-

Then we prayed the Divine Mercy chaplet with our Teams of Our Lady group and our chaplain.

I am trying to remember Holy Saturday.  I do know she loves her sandbox and always has helpers in there with her.  :)

We worked hard on the yard on Holy Saturday and also decorated for Easter.  All three boys worked hard in the yard with Daddy.

 I love a freshly edged yard!

And for the first time in years we dyed eggs!  I used to do this when Marc and Julia were little.  Every year I buy the dye, but lately we haven't gotten around to it.  This year we finally had time.  :)  It was fun!

 

I immediately refrigerated them and we used them for deviled eggs for the next three nights!  :)

 That night Daddy gave us all a very profound lesson on what happened when Christ "descended into hell" on Holy Saturday.  Then we watched The Passion of the Christ as a family (we skipped through the toughest parts for the little guys).  It was very somber.  After getting the children to bed, I got everything ready for Easter joy!

This is my grandmother's tablecloth, my great-aunt's china, and my mom's silver.  :)  I found some Easter "crackers" that we enjoyed.  We first used some at Christmas and now it's definitely a thing.  Inside the crackers were bunny ears, a little toy and a joke and fun fact to read to the table. 

We turned our sacrifice beads into jelly beans.  This year they had 139 sacrifice beads. 

We got the Easter baskets together-

Got out the Easter books- a few not pictured-

I love my Jim Shore angels.  :)

We made our traditional cross-shaped monkey bread on Easter morning. 

 

 

It was going to rain all day so we quickly got dressed for church and took a few pictures. 

 

 

 

   

 
We watched the Easter Mass from the National Shrine. 

That afternoon we tuned in the Andrea Boccelli's amazing Easter concert. 

We had a wonderful lunch.

The rest of the day was rainy and dark and we had a restful day inside.  Despite the quarantine, this was a very special, prayerful Easter.  Some children even said it was their most prayerful ever.  So grateful for all our many blessings including this forced hiatus from the busyness of America.  Thy will be done, Lord!