easter weekend

we had a lovely easter weekend, celebrating with aaron's family and maryka and kevin. (although we were certainly missing our north shore friends and the christ church hullabaloo!) we hosted a pre-easter-vigil dinner here on saturday, which i know is sort of cheating, but it just worked out. we had a yummy ham and potatoes dinner, along with cakes from maryka and aaron's mom and truffles made by aaron. the weather was lovely and the easter egg hunt in our yard was a big hit with noah and kate. at first noah was super generous, handing over all his eggs to kate, but then it seemed to dawn on him that it was a competition, and he got a bit more possessive. you can see the video in the post below.

we also kicked off the first annual secret bunny basket trade, where we all made simple baskets filled with less than $10 worth of treats, crafts, gifts, etc. it turned out to be a big hit. aaron's brother colin says we should do this sort of exchange for every major holiday, and by major he means president's day, canada day, columbus day, etc. we'll see! (the basket i made was really a bag with a "faerie tree" freezer-paper stenciled on the front. you can see it slightly in the picture.)

i also had a lot of fun putting together noah's basket. i ended up choosing the book "the story of easter" by aileen fischer, and he likes to look at the pictures. he identifies jesus on each page, but seems more intrigued by the easter egg trees and the spring solstice dancers. maybe next year we'll make an egg tree. and the little wooden eggs are fun--i thought maybe next year we could paint those. the harmonica replaces the one that we left with grandpa wedell last fall. noah is pretty good at playing it already. he likes the little wooden elephant too, and the train switch track really opens up new worlds of track laying. i also made him a little icon from a picture i found online, of mary and a resurrected jesus surrounded by angels.

the easter vigil at our church was beautiful, but not nearly the pomp and circumstance i'm used to from easters of yore. maryka and i rang our bells with gusto, though we were in the minority. oh well! and noah stayed home and snoozed with grandma, which worked out just fine.

on sunday we went north to ladner, where we feasted again on an amazing million-course brunch at aaron's parents' house. kate was a bit under the weather, but that didn't stop her and noah from feeding the ducks, hassling the bunnies and enjoying a raucous bath together. (see the video in the post below.) and they shared their cousin-ly love.

more pictures from the weekend here.