First Easter

It was Liliane's first Easter and hotdiggity, what a weekend! I am starting to realize that Stéphane and I tend to be activity people - we like to go out and do things and see people and have people over perhaps more than the average family with a five-month old baby, but hey, we're having fun. We figure that the more places we drag her to now, the easier it will be to continue this lifestyle the older she gets. Luckily for us, she's turning out to be quite a social butterfly. We will be putting this theory to the test on Friday when we pack up and take her with us to activity central a.k.a. New York City! More on that later.

Stéphane had Friday off so we took it easy in the morning, then headed out to Toys R Us to spend our gift certificate from my sister-in-law. We got a Diaper Champ (super smell-blocking diaper disposal system) plus a couple of new toys for the big train ride down to the Big Apple and Stéphane found me a sort of pitcher thingy made for rinsing baby's hair in the bath. I love it!

We felt a little guilty basically spending Good Friday at the mall, but it was the only time we could get a car AND I really had to go exchange some clothes that are now too small for Liliane before the 90 day expiration date of the return policy. Can I just say also that we didn't buy anything for ourselves! Except for a quick stop at the Starbucks drive-through :) On Friday evening we headed up to the Mont Royal funeral home to give our condolences to a friend of mine who lost her sister AND her father within about four days of each other. She was holding up amazingly well and I was glad that we made the effort to do that. All in all a good day.

Saturday was my day to do some errands so Stéphane stayed in while I braved the super chilly wind (I'm talking minus 10 at least) to get some groceries for our annual Easter dinner party. It was nice to have the sun shining all weekend but wow, it was cold!! The coldest Easter I have ever experienced. The upside is that all the slush is now frozen so your feet just get chilly, not wet. Since we missed mass on Good Friday, we went instead on Saturday night. If anyone is keeping track of these things, I think extra points should be alloted for not only a) going to church on a Saturday night but b) going to an extra-long special mass and c) bringing our baby along with us! I've never been to an Easter-eve mass and it was actually really lovely. When we came in (only five minutes late!) the lights were off except for a spotlight on a simple tapestry depicting Christ rising from the tomb and the sanctuary was lit by candles held by each member of the congregation. The idea was that we are to be a light to the world, which is something that I've heard often, but it really had an impact on me, seeing all those candles lighting up the darkness. Beautiful.

Stéphane had a hankering to watch the Jesus of Nazareth mini-series that he saw every Easter when he was a kid, so we popped in the DVD and watched some of the highlights if you will. I don't think it's the same Jesus of Nazareth series that I remember watching - this is the Franco Zeffrelli version with lots of well-known actors (including Ernest Borgnine as a Roman soldier!?) and almost everyone speaks with a British accent, including Jesus. It's about 6 hours long all together, but we mostly watched the end. I, sadly, fell asleep and missed the resurrection.

Sunday morning we took advantage of the sunny weather and walked over to my church (although did I mention that it was really, really cold!?) and enjoyed the Easter Sunday service. Liliane wore her new Easter dress and prerequisite white tights, pictured here with matching halo:


Here she is saying "see, it comes with matching bottoms!" And "don't you just love this embroidery?" Clinton and Stacy would be so proud.


Like everybody else in Montréal (and everywhere?), Stéphane and I have a tradition of going out for breakfast after Easter Sunday service. We strolled past all the chic restos packed with brunchers on Bernard Street on our way to the diner in our neighborhood where we enjoyed a $4 plate of eggs, bacon, hash browns, toast and coffee, with a slice of orange and chunk of banana as garnish thank you very much. No highfalutin' brunch for us! For some reason, it's always been a "trucker" breakfast (Stéphane's phrase) for Easter, nothing particularly elegant, but it sure hits the spot! Liliane obliged by sitting in her stroller and playing with her dangly toys while we ate which was good because those vinyl booths were a little too squeezy.

When we got home, we opened Liliane's first Easter card. It was so cute! It came from her Grandma who also sent her some more Pekkle sleepers (my FAVOURITE) which is great since she's outgrown all her other ones... Thanks Mom :)


At least one of us was still dressed up for Easter...


Sunday evening we hosted our annual Easter dinner party. I remember that one of my first blog entries featured last year's Easter party and our friend Eric took our first family picture - Stéphane, a pregnant me plus our first ultrasound:

Awww! I have to say, actually having the baby with us for Easter is WAY more fun. Now that I'm typing this, I'm thinking we should have taken a new family picture THIS year! Oh well. Here are some pictures of our evening:

Colleen took over baby duty which was good because it appears that I am still not able to multitask like I used to...


Mikayla and her new toothless grin...

Emilie hard at work on her egg creation:
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Mmm... dip. People go crazy for the vegetables when you don't feed them right away because you are slow to get the chickens in the oven...

Ariel's stained fingers - the price she paid for egg art.


The fruits of their labours:


Pierre lookin' pretty good with a baby!

Thanks to Martha and my new roasting pan, another happy ending to a chicken roasting story.






It was our first annual event since the baby's been born, and I have to say that it wasn't as different as I thought it would be! The biggest changes for me were that I felt compelled to wear an apron (what is up with that??) and I just didn't care about a lot of stuff that would have driven me crazy before. We don't have Easter-themed napkins? The house isn't spic and span? I'm still wearing my shorts when the doorbell rings? Oh well. Stuff like that.

So that was Easter. It's a sunny day again today and the sidewalks are basically clear now so getting outside for a walk is a little easier. As I mentioned earlier, we are heading down to NYC for the weekend on Friday morning. The trick is that we are going by train so our challenge will be to not go crazy on the 10 or 11 hour journey with our wee wiggle monster to entertain the whole way. It will be worth it to get back to one of my all-time favourite cities and see Matthew and Bari to boot. Plus, we figure that (sing along with me!) "if we can make it there, we can make it anywhere" :)

Happy Monday everyone!