Easter

He is risen!
Today was a long day. We woke early so we could get reasonable seats for 9 o'clock Mass. The Christmas and Easter Only Catholics crowd the church so we have to get there so early. It is made more difficult since I am not a morning person and I am nursing. My mom met us at Mass and helped to with the children. There was an Easter egg hunt afterward but we didn't make it over to the Parish Hall in time. I felt so bad for Our Little Helper, he had such a disappointed look on his face. We decided to go straight home so that he could get his Easter basket. It was not my intention to make him wait until after church to get his candy, but there was no way we had time to do it before hand.Last night I set up all the Easter decorations and Mr. W helped me assemble the baskets. With our family of four we are filling up this mantle. The metal crucifix in the center I purchased at an antique store during our trip to Scottsdale. I wasn't specific enough when I asked Mr. W to buy two Easter lilies for me, he thought I just meant cut flowers. So I had no potted plants to put in the copper cache pots, instead I put a simple vase with the lilies on our entry table. I forget how fragrant they are!
For our brunch I made egg salad and served it on bagels, with BUTTER! Oh, how I had missed buttering my toast!
For as long as I can remember my Uncle D and Aunt T have hosted Easter. All three daughters have birthdays within a month of each other so Easter can be combined with a birthday celebration for them. This year my Aunt's family is celebrating her dad's 90th birthday on Easter so we had to make other arrangements. My grandma prepared the Easter dinner this year. I have been coming by the last few weeks setting up the table and decorating it so that she had less work to do. She made a nice ham and my Aunt R made a pretty and delicious fruit salad. I made the lamb shaped cake.
Two weeks ago my grandpa had an episode which the doctors believe was another stroke. His last one was almost 16 years ago and he has never recovered his speech. It was very scary for my Grandma, understandably. I've been a little worried the last few weeks because he's always napping when I stop by, but he is still up and about and today we took a ton of family photos and he definitely knew what was going on and was smiling and interacting with the baby. In the past he is sometimes slack jawed in photos, but today everything was working for us.
Happy Easter!