{This and That} :: Springtime Celebrations

Happy Easter! Are you having a glorious Easter season? I felt a bit like I missed Easter Week since I was out of town for Motherwell, so I am grateful Easter is a season and not just a day or week. (And it was such a nice trip that it did feel quite festive!)

In fact, a bunch of things kind of came to a head here in our home in the last two weeks of April, while I was away from this space. Catching up on our week of celebrations here today...

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The most important celebration of the week was Easter itself, of course. The days leading up to it, the Holy Triduum, are some of my favorite of the liturgical year. I took the older children to the Holy Thursday service as well as on Good Friday.

The little kids kept busy at home...You just can't make this kind of thing up! LOL

And we were all so happy when Easter morning arrived!

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Second: we had Exam Week for Term 3 during Holy Week, closing out our school year. We finished on Holy Thursday morning, just in time to spend a prayerful Triduum. I was so happy it worked out that way!

holding their favorite books from the year!

We waited for our Exam Celebration until Easter Monday: cinnamon rolls, recitations, our usual display of work, some kind comments from Daddy...

As always, our little celebratory treat included some books and crafts for the summer ahead:

new stamped embroidery kits for the girls since they finished the others (I find these kinda tricky since the stamping is thick and a challenge to sew through, but they are a good starting point)
quilling kits for the boys (a new craft for us that I think they'll really enjoy)
a big pack of Gelly Rolls for all of their lettering
Timeless Golden Records CDs for some summertime car fun for my littles

And books relevant to the schoolwork we have done...
Brown's Daniel Boone from the Landmark series (to tie in with Year 4)
Little Golden Book's Our Flag (thinking about the Union Jack)
Gibbons' The Great St. Lawrence Seaway (to go with Paddle to the Sea!)
The White Cat retold by San Souci and Spirin (one of our favorite stories from The Blue Fairy Book)
Langstaff's Hi! Ho! The Rattlin' Bog (for summertime piano practice)
Wessels' The Golden Song Book (to replace a beat-up copy)
The Botany Coloring Book (for the line drawings to go with First Studies in Plant Life)
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, retold by Barbara Cohen and illustrated by Trina Schart-Hyman

I will be giving a closer look at some of the year's work in my wrap-up post, coming at some point this summer! (Here is last year's.)

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I also had a Good Friday birthday boy: Xavier turned nine! We waited until Easter Tuesday, his baptismal anniversary and the Feast of St. George, to celebrate.

Bearskin, illustrated by Trina Schart-Hyman
The Bearskinner, from the Brothers Grimm
Natalie Babbitt's Kneeknock Rise
Raggedy Andy Stories
an over-the-door basketball hoop
a pack of wool felt to make the sewn dagger he has been dreaming up since Christmas :)

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And then on Easter Wednesday I left for Motherwell bright and early. I'll share about that event in another post.

Now I'm home and we're finished with school and I don't have another trip on the calendar until the CMEC Summer Retreat in July! Time to start school planning, house purging, book reorganization, and all of my other summertime projects...as soon as I catch up on sleep. :)