all things new

my absolute favorite day of the year

He makes all things new
all things new

i try
[try]
to show His immeasurable grace to these two

our day:
[Easter Vigil with the hubs]
my grandmother’s french crepes
Easter baskets
a beautiful mass
nap for one
resurrection rolls for the other
cooking dinner
phone calls and family time
sharing and living the good news

and i want to remember how
little L sings his own tunes [loudly] in the car
hides under the table, or behind the couch, or in a corner if he has something he should not have
and every night he asks to thank God for Jesus and the cross
big L almost done with her first set of BOB books
mothering her babies
adding and subtracting
loving asparagus
and taking little L’s hand when he asks for hers to help him up the stairs

happy, joyful, beautiful Easter

palm branch cross tutorial

I will explain (hopefully adequately) only one of many ways to make a cross out of the palm branches we receive on Palm Sunday
[they remind us of the branches placed at the feet of Jesus when he entered Jerusalem about a week before his crucifixion]

(i will refer to the ends as ‘wide’ and ‘tapered’)

1. separate the palm branch.

2. fold over in the middle to create a 90 degree angle. wide end down.

3. fold wide end up, keep the 90 degree angle.

4. flip the whole thing over, so that the wide end, which was just on the top, is now on the bottom

5. fold wide end up again.

6-7.  fold tapered end to the right.

8. stick tapered end through the pocket you’ve created

9. pull through. it should now be pretty secure, and able to stand on its own.

10. fold tapered end (on left) back, and put it through the pocket again

11. pull through until the arm of the cross is the desired length. the tapered end should now be on the right side.

12. fold the tapered end back, and again put it through the pocket as in #11 to create the other arm. flip it around and wrap the remaining tapered end through the pocket as i did, or just cut it off

13-14. fold wide end back and through the pocket. pull through until you’ve achieved the desired length of the top arm

15. you can either leave it alone, or tuck the wide end back through the pocket again.

Enjoy your palm cross!

on another note, we dyed easter eggs naturally today!
we used spinach, green tea, red onion peel, and paprika to create these lovely colors.
they are in the refrigerator soaking up more color overnight. Love that nature produces such beautiful hues

daughter

to my beautiful,
with wind swept hair
blue sky eyes
and a creative, inquisitive mind

i love you.
and i will never stop loving you.

this love is all His.
you don’t know it yet
but you have brought me closer to God
by knowing His love more completely than i ever have
[help me love like You love, my God]
what a gift you are
a gift.

i’d love a hundred more gifts like this
and they’d all be worth everything for a second of this love.

you sang [out of nowhere_ correction_ out of your heart] ‘Jesus died for us’ about a hundred times in the car today
and when we were in unfamiliar territory, your response to my rhetorical
‘where are we’
was ‘in the United States.’
i smiled.
you make me smile everywhere.
i want everything better for you.
thank you for learning, and asking, knowing, and growing right in front of me every single day.

[and after asking several times to do so, your brother fell asleep
in a big boy bed
for the first time tonight.]

be the fruit

and all i can think
is that my words pale next to these
and this is what i want
this is who i want to be
what i want every action, every decision to reflect
(even unseen and unspoken)
each is important
don’t let anyone convince you otherwise
we cannot expect peace when we’re not peaceful
we cannot expect gentleness when we’re not gentle
[children included, and especially, they are mirrors of big people]

and i’m feeling like my brother St Ignatius, and ask for your prayers.

“Please pray for me, that I may have both spiritual and physical strength to perform my duties; that I may not only speak the truth but become the truth; that I may not only be called a Christian, but also live like a Christian. Yet I do not want people to look to me as an example, for at best I can only be a pale reflection of Christ Jesus; let people look away from the reflection and turn to the reality. Christianity is not a matter of persuading people of particular ideas, but of inviting them to share in the greatness of Christ. So pray that I may never fall into the trap of impressing people with clever speech, but instead I may learn to speak with humility, desiring only to impress people with Christ himself.”
[St. Ignatius of Antioch]