The LaGreca Family

I didn’t want to let Easter pass w/o it’s OWN blog post. After all, it’s probably my favorite holiday of the year!

The weeks leading up to Easter were busy with fun activities. The boys both attended Easter for Kids at a local church. It’s a GREAT free program where kids learn all about the Easter story, and work on crafts, decorate cookies, watch a short video and learn a new song (to sing for all the parents at the end). It was AJ’s first year going (kids have to be 3…so, I got ‘special’ permission for him to go a month before his 3rd birthday). The church served a free lunch to all the families and them there was a BIG Easter Egg Hunt outside.

Then we had Palm Sunday at church and one of our traditions at FHPC is to have the children walk into the sanctuary with Palm branches and then they sing a song in front of the church.

In preparation of Good Friday, Nicholas drew the above picture of his understanding of the events happening on Good Friday. I just LOVE evert hung about his picture. Although he doesn’t really understand the unbelievable significance of that 1st Good Friday, his little brain is soaking up as much as it can. Every year, I can see a difference and maturity in his understanding of Easter.

Another Easter Egg Hunt the Saturday before Easter with friends and family. The boys got MORE candy. And we had a family picture taken with the Easter Bunny (not pictures above…maybe it will be good enough to make it on the Christmas card this year).

We dyed a LOT of hard boiled eggs the evening before Easter. I can’t believe how fast 5 kids dyed 24 eggs!! AJ was excited to get them all done and then he was very concerned about WHEN we would be able to EAT them. I let him have one with dinner that night

Easter Morning!! It was a busy morning at church. The All Church breakfast was first.

Then an Easter Egg Hunt on the playground.

One of my favorite parts of our Easter Sunday worship is the cross with flowers. And I FINALLY remembered to bring flowers this year! The boys each got to put two flowers on the cross to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection on Easter morning. The music at church was AMAZING!! Seriously, wow!

We ended the day with Easter lunch/dinner at Meg & Steve’s house…and THE FINAL Egg Hunt of 2013!

Lent was a great time of sacrifice and prayer. It was fun to talk to the boys about Easter and teach them a little bit more than they already knew. Nicholas is starting to have some REALLY good (and hard) spiritual questions!! Sometimes I really have to think about my answer (and try to put it in terms that a 5 year old can understand). It’s NOT easy!

Hard to believe it’s April and Easter has come…and gone :/ Lucky for us, we get to celebrate Easter every Sunday! (But Easter Sunday is still, and always will be, my FAVORITE Sunday of the year).

This is the only picture I will post (on the blog) for now…an iMovie documenting the weekend, coming soon…

But I just have to say…we just had the MOST amazing beach camping weekend. I just told Joe that it might have been my favorite weekend camping trip ever!

It DOES get easier — there was a time when I didn’t believe it — but it’s TOTALLY true. Now that we have a 5+ year old and an almost 3 year old, weekend camping trips actually have gotten easier and WAY more FUN!!

Our boys are pooped. They ran. They rode. They dug. They worked. They ate. They climbed. They raced. They roasted. They slept.

I am finding it more common to be sad when it’s time to go home — and I used to be excited to go home because I was SO exhausted and just wanted normalcy. Now, I want our two night weekend trips to ALWAYS be at least 3 nights. I will have to make it so.

Like I said…video to come.

I had so many pictures and video clips from December – I figured I should put them together in a movie and share (especially for our family and friends that live outside of San Diego).

Enjoy!

Our Christmas Stay-cation has begun.

I left work early on Friday and actually got home before anyone else! It was still LIGHT outside…so I took the boys for a walk. We saw Christmas lights and walked up to Grandma & Grandpa’s house. And then we watched ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ — one of my childhood favorites

Saturday was filled with puzzles, trains, shopping, firetruck rides and coffee breaks.

Bike riding and neighbor visits, too.

We are trying to get all the last minute Christmas stuff done, food prepared, and gifts wrapped. We are ALL looking forward to the next two days.

AND for 11 days — the boys will ask me “Mama, are you going to work today?” And I get to answer “NO!!” (Well, no I don’t have to go to the office — which is good enough for them!)

The Wednesday before T-giving, our church prepared a feast for a group of people that wouldn’t have had a Thanksgiving otherwise.

We had plenty of food for the dinner and plenty of food for everyone to have leftovers. What a blessing for our church family to provide a nice meal to those in our community.

Thursday was at our house with my family. And — Joe baked his FIRST Turkey! He was SO nervous…but it turned out amazing! (Of course! I knew it would be great). He also made pumpkin pie — from scratch (ie. he cooked a pumpkin).

Some of us walked to the park after dinner. It was a lovely crisp afternoon (for San Diego), the fresh air felt great!

We closed out the night with a fire in the courtyard.

Two days after Thanksgiving was our ‘annual’ Sausage Making Party. We had a great group of people over (some newbies) and we successfully made almost 90 lbs of yummy LaGreca Italian Sausage.

And then, we all enjoyed our hard work.

Last weekend, after church, we attempted to hike Cowles Mountain. I packed some sandwiches and we headed up the street.

Nicholas really wanted to go all the way to the top, but Anthony’s legs are still a little too short (and, it was nap time).

The miracles of Christmas started early in our house. After months of working in the garage…cleaning, donating and organizing…we successfully got ONE car in the garage!!

(Good thing our cars are small — and our garage is BIG!)

Cake for Grandpa’s birthday. Nicholas wrote “Happy Birthday” on Grandpa’s card — I was SO impressed!!

This past Wednesday, our Advent Gatherings started at church. There are so many reasons I LOVE December — our FHPC family makes it even better. It’s so nice to spend time with our friends in the middle of the week. This week we sang songs, talked about names, decorated ornaments with all the names of God, and ate self-frosted cookies.

We started off this weekend (and the beginning of December) with our annual Breakfast with Santa preschool fundraiser. Joe headed up the kitchen again. And, the boys were terrified of Santa…again.

We started decorating our tree with the boys…they were pretty excited about it.

(Thanks to “Sign Design” for the fabulous Nativity sign. It is PERFECT for our dining room).

Last few pictures…we had a double date night with my sister and her boyfriend. We did a bit of Christmas shopping, then had a drink together, and then…SUSHI!!

We have been pretty busy – good thing I was snapping pictures along the way.

And now…this blog is caught up