Happy Easter

You know you've reached a new life stage when you use a gravy boat for the first time. And when you're the ones hosting a mix of lonely grad students who are far from home for Easter dinner. We managed this late in the day, about twelve hours after Tom left for our church's first-ever Easter sunrise service at 5:45. The service drew 50 people to stand on the church lawn at sunrise, despite the near-freezing temperatures. Many of them came back for one of the two regular services, replete with lilies, trumpets, Handel, and congregants leaping out of their seats to shout, Alleluia!

Of course one of the perks of having two girls is the chance to dress them in matching outfits. But as we discovered today, even if the matching children may garner oohs and aahs in person, it remains hard to get a decent picture of them in all their coordinated glory when one of them is still too little to sit up, much less stand. Having two children, helping lead services, and hosting dinner limited the number of good pictures we got today, period. We have no shots of our guests, nor of our fancy table, set with inherited family china that actually all matched. In fact, the only one we photographed enjoying a feast this week was Alice, lapping at her first "solid" food, sweet potatoes, a few days ago. Today she happily added bananas to her repertoire.

Unpacking her Easter basket

Tom promised Edith a kite for Easter, just as his mother always gave him; here they unwrap that, too

She will cling to the old rugged cross...

Rarin' to go

More complacent