It was a great weekend.  I took tons of pictures – and I am hoping to get them posted sooner than later, this time.

Our weekend started on Thursday night – the Passover dinner.  My husband had planned to be off work the following day, so we celebrated a “double Sabbath.”  On Friday, we slept in, had our family worship time with reading the Bible and prayer, and then went out for a late breakfast at Bob Evans.  In the evening, we had pizza and watched the movie, “Bedtime Stories.”  This was a hit in our family.  From our youngest – 8 years old, up to our oldest (still at home) – 17 years old, there were huge grins, lots of chuckles, and at times, outrageous laughter.  Everyone loved it.

Saturday morning, I was going to make a simple breakfast of blueberry pancakes.  My husband requested eggs to have alongside the pancakes, so what started out to be a simple breakfast, ended up being rather elaborate.  In our home, everyone likes their eggs prepared a different way.  And I’m a mom that likes to make everyone happy, so I accommodate.  We had eggs over-easy (dad, mom, Ruthie); scrambled eggs with lots of cheese (Rachel); scrambled eggs without cheese and very-well done (Joshua and Jacob.)

Jacob loves hash browns, so I threw some of these on the griddle (Wal-Mart has some of the best hash browns patties.)   Then, I decided, why not some turkey bacon, too?  I had some left over corn bread casserole from the Passover dinner, and I decided to fry that in some coconut oil. We also had leftover “Mortar” – apples, dates, seeds, nuts, honey, and cinnamon.    It was a huge breakfast.

After breakfast, we sat at the table and read the Bible together.  We read from the passage in Numbers Chapter 22.  Are you a Shrek movie lover?  We are.  And that is why we all got a huge kick out of reading this chapter regarding the talking donkey.  If you don’t remember this story, get your Bible out and read it.  Our family enjoyed this story immensely.

It was a sunny day – a little bit chilly, but a great day to get outside.  We employed our horses to do our edging for us around our fencing, and tied them up outside of their dry-lot and on our yard.  Seven horses will do a lot of edging in a very short time!  It was fun having them hang out with us in our yard.  Rachel pulled her MP3 player outside – we had music playing and children running around having a good time (including a few neighbor children).  Rachel went riding Kayleen in the round pen; Joshua worked with his horse, Maria, and I spent some time grooming a few of the horses.  We let our colt, Magic, roam where ever he wanted to.  He took naps and let Rachel lay down right beside him.  We took a ton of pictures - it was so sweet.

Saturday evening we left to go to my mom’s for Easter Sunday.  I love going to the house I grew up in.  I sleep in the same bedroom I did as a child (it is the only home my parents have ever owned.)   I love to wake up in the morning and smell my mom’s awesome meal cooking in the kitchen.  My children also love going to Grandma’s house. 

We had a sweet church service.  We met in the old church building.  I played the piano for our hymn singing; both elders shared Scripture (my husband re-told the story of the talking donkey in Numbers Chapter 22 – all the kids eyes sparkled as he retold this story.)  Even the young adults, Bobby and Dolly, seemed to enjoy hearing my husband tell this story.  He related it to how God can do anything; He can use any means He wants in order to talk to us, even through a talking donkey. 

We had prayer – we go around in a circle, and everyone prays.  We do not try to hurry our church service to end at a certain time.  Each one prays for whatever is on their heart and desires to beseech God their requests.  The little children pray, the young adults, and us older ones.  Some pray short and sweet prayers, others, pray longer.  It is a very intimate time during our worship service.  We had the Lord’s Supper after our prayer time. 

Have you ever walked out from your church service and felt very full and satisfied from within?  This is the way I felt this day.  As my body was physically nourished from the delicious meal my mom had made us for Easter, so was my spiritual body nourished during our time together. 

My mom’s Easter meal was fabulous.  No one cooks a roast like my mom.  With this we had: Sweet potato casserole, broccoli and cheese casserole, green bean casserole, strawberry jello pretzel salad, and rolls. She also made a homemade blueberry pie and a chocolate pie. Did I mention that it was delicious?   After we ate, the smaller children colored eggs, and then we had an Easter egg hunt in Grandma’s living room. This has been a tradition in our family for a very long time.

When we got home in the evening, we had some of Grandma’s desserts (from lunch) and some homemade chocolate chip and cherry cookies (I had made the batter the day before).  We read more chapters in the Bible with the children, and then finished the evening with several chapters in the novel we’ve been reading.

Today it’s cold and rainy outside.  We have a fireplace crackling.  Dad is home – doing some phone calls and paper work from the dining room table.  Grandma’s leftovers from Easter dinner are cooking in the oven, and it’s time to eat lunch.  What a great Monday.