7 Quick Takes-- All Things Bright and Beautiful

It's Easter.

I wanna talk about some good stuff that's happened.

1.) We did a 'vigil' with the kids for Easter, and it actually went pretty well. 

We haven't attended vigil mass since I was pregnant with our first born, because I know pretty much for a fact that doing so with toddlers will not go well (at least, with our toddlers). Our family tradition has been to have a movie night with an Easter appropriate movie and pop popcorn instead.

This year, we decided to do something a little different. I found prayers to bless a new fire and a paschal candle in this book , so I painted a candle,

and we decided to have a fire to light it.

 I got the kids dressed in 'nice' clothes (versus letting them just run around in their underwear, which is what we have been doing), Chris lit a fire in the grill on the back porch, and we said the prayer, sprinkled holy water, and renewed our baptismal vows.

Image courtesy of Chris Hess. We forgot to take a picture while it was actually lit. 

Chris lit the candle from the fire with a bamboo skewer (which burns very quickly by the way, so be careful if you try to do this), we sang a hymn, and then carried it inside and placed it on our home altar.

Then we stuffed our faces with party food (7 layer dip, chips, wings, and WAY too much sweet bread) and watched The Miracle Maker. 

All in all, a pretty nice way to kick off Easter.

2.) Wildflowers are in bloom where we are, and it's beautiful. 

Easter morning, I went outside and looked around for some flowers. I had to tromp around our property a bit, but I found enough to make a very pretty little bouquet to decorate for our 'home church.'

I love sunflowers, and for whatever reason they grow like crazy down here. Every summer we get a row taller than I am down the back of our property, and the kids love to go and pick them.

3.) We had some cattle egrets decide to pay us a visit. 

Image courtesy of Chris and his cool camera with a big zoom lens.  

When I looked out the window this morning, I saw a huddle of white shapes at the back of our property.

Several hours later, and they've become quite comfortable wandering around our yard eating bugs. There's several of them, at least six or seven.

They have very thick golden feathers at the top of their heads, quite distinctive.

Image also Chris's. 

I'm surprised that the dog hasn't taken an interest in them.

They're really cool to watch. They do this shimmy snake dance move with their head before they pounce on a bug (I guess to confuse it?), and they have a very stately, measured walk.

4.) I have eaten WAY more carbs and sugar than is good for me in the past three days. 

I am one of the many people come lately to the bustling sourdough scene. I discovered this coffee cake recipe I decided to try. I made it, and it turned into two GINORMOUS coffee cakes, and ...guys...OH MY GOSH.

This stuff is dangerous. A wonderful soft dough rolled up with lots of cinnamon, sugar, and raisins and smothered in a lovely thinned buttercream icing. It took the better part of a full day to make, and that might be a good thing, because I think if it were any easier to make I would try to live off of it.

The three types of sweet bread I made this year. Note how little is left of that coffee cake. 

That was the highlight, but I also made resurrection rolls and Easter egg bread, and then we made a drive-by visit to my in-laws and sisters in law and ended up with a huge gift bag full of candy, two types of pie, and a huge chunk of cake. And for some unknown reason, I decided to take the remnants of the mardi gras king cake out of the freezer.

I gave some of the coffee cake and egg bread away to family, but we are still very well endowed in the sweets department.

Let the good times and sugar crashes roll. Happy Choctave of Easter.

5.) The garden, both the vegetable garden and the porch garden, are doing very well. 

I took dirt out of the chicken run this year to use as potting soil, and Chris fixed the spigot on the porch so it no longer leaks (we can actually use it now instead of keeping it cut off) and added a hose. My herbs are very happy this year, and we even got a random volunteer tomato plant that popped up with the cilantro.

I also painted the front of the gate. It's not finished yet, but I like what I have so far.

It's very Caribbean and kind of obnoxious, but I honestly like that in a gate.

We've been burying the veggie garden bed in mulch for awhile now, and Chris was recently given an old irrigation system by his parents that he purchased a few extra pieces for.

Apparently, this has made the plants very happy. I've got several baby zucchini coming up, the tomato plants (several of them volunteers that popped up in the corn...it's the year for that, evidently) are growing and starting to produce fruit, and we've got lots of okra popping up too.

6.) By some weird twist of fate, we went yesterday with almost no screen time for the kids. 

We weren't able to repeat that today, but yesterday the kids spent a ton of time outside.

The dog is finally at a point where she's not constantly jumping up on them, so they can actually move around the yard, and we were fortunate enough to be able to snag some sidewalk chalk in a grocery run, so they like to decorate the front porch with that.

I recently let them branch out into tempura paint on the porch, but then they used it on the actual house and I'm pretty sure our front door frame is permanently dyed slightly blue now (update: I checked, it came off, thank goodness). So probably not going to do that again.

7.) We have a cat now! 

She showed up in a trash heap in the neighbor's yard, and we gradually convinced her to come live with us (neighbor didn't want her, said his dogs will kill cats).

Wonder of wonders, the dog gets along with her!! I've even caught them nuzzling like best friends.

Since she's been here (about two or three weeks), there's been a lot less scratching and rustling noises coming from under the house, so I think she's killing or driving away the rodent population too (for why this is a HUGE deal for us, read this).

We named her Corrie, short for Corona (we also have a three and a half year old rooster named Donald).



And that has been our Easter thus far.

Happy Octave, everyone.

See the rest of this week's takes here.