Easter Lunch - Continuing to Celebrate Easter

Are you still celebrating Easter?  We are!  There are lots of ways to celebrate the 50 days of Easter, and a new activity for us this year is having a Symbolic Easter Lunch!  We had so much fun with our Lenten Lunch that Lacy from Catholic Icing designed so we knew that we wanted to try to Easter Lunch as well! 

We used the Way of Light for Children from Family Feast and Feria as our guide to pray, read about and reflect upon the events from Easter until Pentecost. It was a real treat to have so many goodies with our lunch and it is a fun way for the children to bring to life the Easter story.  This is a great activity to do with your family any time between Easter and Pentecost!

Find all of the food ideas and what they can represent HERE! 

At the end we talked about what their favorite parts of the story were.  Ryan (6 years) liked the part about Doubting Thomas and how he could stick his finger in the doughnut like Thomas did in Jesus's wounds.  Connor (4 years) loved the story of Pentecost and the Holy Spirit descending upon the disciples and Mary and us using red pepper to symbolize the flames of the Holy Spirit.  Luke (2 years) liked the story of the Sea of Tiberias and the fishermen, probably because Goldfish crackers are his favorite treat!  Peter (now 5 months) just enjoyed hanging out with all of us and smiled away!

This was such a fun activity and one that hopefully will become an Easter tradition for our family!

Ski Vacation

We had such a great family vacation to Colorado!  Here is a quick run down of our trip and lots of pictures.  A big thank you to my in-laws for helping making this trip a possibility and a great success!

 

We also were celebrating Holy Week during our trip, which you can read about at

Our Easter in Review!

 

The Drive

 

 

Family Time

 

The best part about family vacations is the opportunity to spend some quality time together.  We stayed in a rental home with my in laws and had a great opportunity to play games, chat and just have fun!

 

 

 

Skiing

Our boys had never really skied before.  Our oldest two (6 years and 4 years) took ski lessons on the first day and did well with that.  Our 6 year old was skiing on his own by day 3 and loved every minute of it.  Our 4 year old had a blast snow plowing down the mountain between someone's legs and our 2 year old loved the chair lift!

 

Critterland

 

There is a place at Copper Mountain made just for the little ones called Critterland.  It was great to visit and especially our 2 year old had a blast!

 

Traveling with 4 little ones is never easy, but we loved having some extra special time as a family!

Divine Mercy Sunday

 

I had never really heard much about St. Faustina and the Divine Mercy until a few years ago and it was not until I started reading Divine Mercy for Moms that I truly came to understand and love this beautiful gift from Jesus.  We celebrate the Feast of Divine Mercy on the Second Sunday of Easter. I feel like it is especially important to celebrate this feast this year now that we are within the Year of Mercy, as instructed from Pope Francis this is such an important time to be learning how to be merciful within our own lives, homes and communities. 

 

 

Sometimes I feel like these things that the Catholic Church asks of us are simply too hard, or I do not see how I can apply them to my own life.  Yet, Divine Mercy for Moms truly helped me see how I can take the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy and use them in my daily living.  God is calling each of us to be a Saint, and I can see in the small ways of acting in merciful love how I am answering God's calling in my own life.  We love to keep the reminder of the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy on display in our home!

 

 

Beyond discussing the spiritual side of special feast days we also love to make things fun and memorable in our home, so for this Divine Mercy Sunday we made Divine Mercy Ice Cream Sundaes!  It was a big hit!

 

Also, one of my favorite prayers is St. Faustina's Prayer for Divine Transformation.  It is a perfect prayer to add to daily life to increase mercy in your life.