Easter Break - Week 1

This past week went by rather quickly. The days are non stop when the kids are home from school. It has been SO good despite the disorderly house and exhaustion each night. I had several goals for this vacation which included varied fun and educational activities. So far so good in accomplishing that. Samuel has a boat load of homework to do over vacation, so we have been devoting at least 1 hr. each day to that in order to be done by the time he returns to school. I have been working on teaching Emma how to read in English and she is really catching on quickly and reading more each day. Today she even read some of Samuel's homework in Italian.

And then there is Luca who spiked a fever of 104 on Wednesday afternoon. His fever continued for over 48 hours with no other symptoms of stomach issues or a cold. When we would ask if he had "ouchies" he would only say that his bellybutton hurt. Today he is back to his normal vibrant self. But then, Samuel came down with the fever last night and it has continued on in to today. Guess that means me and the kids will be staying home Easter Sunday :(

The weather has been good and in the mid-50s, except for one day of rain. So we have had some good playtime outside as well. Emma is begging for me to bring out the swimming pool but I told her it had to get to 70 degrees before I would even entertain that thought.





What a great week as well to do activities focusing on the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus! Last year we did a playdough mountain to help tell the story of Easter. This year we added to our family traditions of making Resurrection Cookies. It was an awesome activity for our whole family. Jonathan read through Scripture and talked about the significance of each ingredient and of course the visual, touching and doing involved further embedded the story in the kids' minds. Too bad our tombs were a bit mushy and not empty in the morning. Not sure what I did wrong. Maybe the cookies were too big? Who knows, but they do taste good!

Starting a new Easter family tradition

Crushing the pecans--like Jesus was crushed and beaten for us

We have never done an Easter egg hunt and it looks like tomorrow that won't change our tradition as rain is in the forecast. Instead of having Easter baskets here in Italy, they have these enormous football sized (or even as large as a tall decorative floor vase) chocolate eggs that are hollow with a toy on the inside. I figured why spend the 10-15 euros per child when we could make our own giant eggs. So that is how paper mache came in to the list of activities. It was a bust with the kids. Samuel didn't want to get his hands sticky and Emma only tolerated it for a little while before getting annoying with the stickiness herself. So Mamma completed two coats of mache on three balloons all by myself.

My little crafting helper

The finishing touches of gluing the tissue paper on the eggs was tolerated much better as it was less messy. I will fill their eggs with little candies and that will be their Easter egg basket.

Check out Emma's precision!

Our display of Easter baskets with the "chick" Emma made at school. I think it looks more like a turkey, but hey.

Oh, and to our surprise one of Jonathan's English classes gifted him with 3 chocolate gift eggs for the kids. So sweet of them!!