In the weeks leading up to Easter, W and I worked hard on blowing out and decorating eggs and making preparations. We were also working really hard to get all of those boxes unpacked and get the house ready for my IL's to come visit for the holiday. We put up a few spring decorations.
W was very excited about Easter for about two weeks before the actual day. We enjoyed a neighborhood egg hunt and we went back to our previous town and our old church for a visit which happened to be on the day of the egg hunt there. I think this helped to build up the excitement for the actual day for W.
Also, during Holy Week we set up a Lenten garden as suggested in the book All Year Round.
We also followed the authors' suggestion to make chervil soup and had a simple but lovely Maundy Thursday meal.
The night before Easter W and I put a "nest" out in our balcony garden for the Easter Bunny. It was just a small basket lined with some lovely unprocessed wool that a friend had brought to me from New Zealand (beautiful wool). We placed some carrots in the nest as well (sorry I forgot to take pictures of this).
I got up about a half hour before W did on Easter morning and had just enough time to put breakfast in the oven and hide our dyed Easter eggs before he woke up. It was perfect timing!
W woke up to find his Lenten garden transformed into a beautiful Easter garden and he was just mesmerized by it.
For several moments he just stood at the edge of the sofa and gazed at the transformation.
Then he decided to get a closer look...
...and the excitement on his face was just beautiful...
I actually had to remind him about the nest we had left for the Easter Bunny. I also handed him a basket and told him to check to see if the Easter Bunny had hid any eggs on the balcony.
Then the egg hunt moved into the playroom...
Admiring his collection.
...and then ended in the living room with some more hidden eggs and finally his Easter basket (which he had walked by at least a dozen times before noticing...lol).
And how he enjoyed the surprises inside!
He looked at his new Gerda Muller Spring book...
...snacked on some bunny crackers...
....played with his lamb marionette...
....and played with his new wood and (mama-made) knit chickens on his new (again mama-made) farm play mat. He deiced the animals were all tired and needed to go to sleep!
We then had a nice breakfast of scotch eggs and hot cross buns with Nana and Granddad and got ready to go to church, which was truly lovely. It was a blessed and magical morning.
W and I cooked for much of the rest of the day and we enjoyed an Easter feast with family and one of Daddy's co-worker friends. Unfortunately my camera battery died and I have yet to find the charger since the move so I wasn't able to photograph the rest of the day.
All in all though, it was one of the best Easters I can remember.
