I hope everyone had a beautiful and joyous Pascha! We had a wonderful Holy Week and my mom came down from Ohio on Holy Friday to visit for a week or so and it was such a blessing to have her here to celebrate with us.I'm thankful every day for my Orthodox Faith but I am especially thankful during Holy Week. It is such a beautiful and prayerful week and I am so grateful to God for the many blessings we receive during that time. Here are some highlights:

Holy Thursday afternoon consisted of egg dying and kulich baking.I used a different dye this year that I really wasn't happy with. They still had a pinkish tint to them. I wanted to try using onion skins like Martha does but totally forgot until I read her Bright Monday post.I was pretty excited about my kulich, especially since I had to let it rise the first time overnight instead of only three hours. We got home really late Thursday night so I didn't have time to punch it down and let it rise for another hour + baking time, so I did it Friday morning. It looks pretty good though right? I only had 2 coffee cans so I put the leftover dough in a regular baking dish.And a good thing it was too since when I went to take the others out of the cans...they wouldn't come out! I didn't realize that my cans weren't supposed to have a lip around the top (I will definitely remember that next year though)!! :*( Poor kulich... We did eat the one in the baking dish and it was yummy but it wasn't nearly as pretty as the photos I've seen. We'll try again next year!What it looked like after DH had to surgically remove it from the can...

Holy Friday

We decorated the epitaphios Friday afternoon. It turned out beautifully and the boys had a lot of fun. Lucky was old enough this year to help too; he pulled apart the flowers and placed them in the basket for Fr. to throw. :)The girls loved collecting the flower petals. Here are two of my favorite little girls counting them.The little boys loved playing with...er...holding their candles. We have a giant wax ball to prove it too.And both young and old enjoyed the procession and walking under the epitaphios on the way back into church.

PASCHA {FEAST OF FEASTS}

"Christ is Risen from the deadBy death He conquered death

And to those in the gravesHe granted life."

DH making the sign of the cross with the holy light above our front door. We didn't get home from church until 5:00 a.m. so we slept for a few hours and then began the cooking. We went to our friend's house for dinner and feasted on roasted lamb, fish, red rice, cornflake potatoes, strawberry cheesecake trifle, chocolate tower cookies, lots of feta and red eggs and more! We had an Orthodox egg hunt for the children. Inside each egg we had a slip of paper numbered from 1-24 that had a line of Scripture from the Crucifixion and Resurrection printed on it. They took turns reading them to re-tell the story and then asked them questions about what they read for fun prizes. Afterwards everyone went to the Agape service and then went home to relax a little.I'm really keeping a close eye on the boys, as well as myself, this week. Bright week is the best time of year to examine ourselves since Satan is bound and any temptations or sins we experience are a result of our passions, not the the evil one. Have a great Bright Week!