Easter weekend

After an exhausting weekend filled with Easter activities, my girl is asleep in her sleeping father's arms downstairs while they recharge from the beautiful craziness of it all. I, taking advantage of this quiet moment to craft some words together to describe this magical weekend we spent as a family, so that I don't forget when the time comes to tell my girl about her first Easter. After all, she won't remember, but these words will help her and I relive it.

There are chores to be done, and even work to do this weekend, none of which had been started. It is a price I choose to pay, for some magical moments as we celebrate the rising of Christ. I don't often talk about religion, nor do I consider myself particularly religious though I participate in important Catholic traditions (after all, we are getting our girl baptized next weekend), I believe in God, I believe that there is a greater power at work than just ourselves.

I appreciate that in a religious holiday such as that of Easter, I am provided with opportunities to make a choice to put down my work, to choose to spend my time with my family and friends, to start holiday traditions, and to build memories with my child. I love that such a little addition to our family had already managed to make such an impact to our lives. We cannot remember the Easter days before her and how we spent it. I appreciate that we are provided these opportunities to be appreciative and for that I am.

So on good Friday night after work, I rounded my siblings and our parents together along with all the kids and gathered at our house. We ate, we enjoyed each other's company and we dyed eggs.

It was the first time for a lot of us, and despite the questionable results of our efforts, we had a blast crayoning, dipping, breaking, laughing, and dying.

After we turned all our white eggs into a variety of different colors and cleaned up the crazy mess we made, we sat around well into the night, allowing the kids to interact with their cousins and the adults enjoying quality time. In moments like these, I wonder why we don't do this more often. It's so enjoyable, so therapeutic, so necessary.

On Saturday morning, we woke up earlier than usual for a weekend morning, adorned our child in her festive Easter attire of pink and green and every happy shade in between, and headed out the door to a local community egg hunt. And despite having not found one single egg, we still came home with a basketful of eggs thanks for our friends who took the time to put together pretty baskets for the kids.

We took the time to nurture our friendships, all the while building new ones for our littles who we hope would be great friends in the future. We dined, we talked over coffee, we spent time outdoor, we snapped pictures to remind us just exactly how much we enjoyed each other's company.

I am constantly reminded of the beautiful journey to where we are, of how life has a way of working out, leading us from single individuals to expanding families of our own, and somewhere along the way, we grew to love the people we picked out to call our spouses, and we love each other's kids like they were our own.

In times like these where the concept of family are appreciated and the concept of friends are nurtured, I am inspired and grateful. Of all the wonders of the world, I am amazed.

I guess come Monday, we probably will forget when we go back to work and we allow the hustle and bustle of life to take over our lives once more, the beauty of the weekend will fade into a distant memory. At least I am comforted that the next holiday is around the corner, to remind us once more to gather, to participate, to celebrate, to live and to be amazed.