Happy Easter!

Vintage French Chocolate Moulds

I have a cat and a water bird (would you call it a duck?).

I have a hand-painted English bowl with waterlilies on it.

I have a selection of egg decorations.

You could call me a happy bunny!

G is for the Grace of God

Happy Easter! I think you guessed that my acrostic word was AMAZING, and that this stemmed from Ang's comment about the Amazing Grace she experiences in her life - the Grace of God. I felt that I wanted to write something about that too, but what on earth could I say that hadn't already been said by the Bible, by hymn writers, by Philip Yancey..? Well, I thought, I could look at God's grace in MY life, because no one else can write about that...

So there we go, I've had a really rather indulgent week of telling my story, and you have been most kind to indulge me in the telling, with your generous and encouraging comments. But the theme behind the telling was meant to be the amazing grace of God, which means his unconditional love for each one of us. Although I gave away my copy of Philip Yancey's book about Grace, the words in the blurb on the back are indelibly etched into my memory: 'There is nothing I can do to make God love me more. There is nothing I can do to make God love me less'. I remember sitting on a London to Leeds train, discussing those words with a fellow teacher, as she worried about some aspects in her life which she felt were letting God down. It is perfectly possible to let God down - I know my anger and irritability do that frequently - but those things don't stop his love for me or you, not one little bit.

I know my life story is a rather cheery, easy one. Nothing terrible ever happened to me, so of course it is easy for me to say, as I did a week ago, 'Life is fun and God is good'. But I could have told my life story from the shadowy side, too. In every good thing that I recall, there is an element of God's grace making it work, and highlighting the light instead of the shadow. I can see God's grace in taking an isolated, slightly arrogant girl and teaching her gently what she wasn't prepared to learn from church or Christian friends. I can see God's grace in leading me into teaching when I thought I was preparing for museum work. I can see God's loving hand guiding me and Ben again and again as we needed to change home and church. I can see God's grace in allowing me to break open so that a softer, deeper, more receptive layer of my character was ready to learn about living with him, living with my family. Those could have been, in fact were, some of the dark sides of my story. But seen in God's light - seen in the light of Jesus and his Easter Resurrection, my story is just a little part of God's story, full of grace and hope.

Easter Holidays begin!

Les Vacances de Pâques are finally here - begun with Easter celebrations in both the English and French traditions, at home, at church, in the garden and with friends...I'm going to take my monthly blogging break to coincide with the first week of the hols - I'll be posting my Thrifty Swap parcel to Michela but I won't be visiting either my blog or yours until next Monday. The family, the garden and real life are calling..!

Happy Easter!

The card is a bit grubby, but it's an Easter Greetings card from 1910, the year my grandmother was born! I'll join with the writer in sending you these Easter wishes, which translate as:

"I wish you good health, Joyous Alleluias and a Happy Easter for you and your dear children."

I hope you've had/are having a wonderful day - Happy Easter, friends!

My final prayer for our children is below. Thanks for your helpful and encouraging comments over this week of prayer!

Easter bonnets, Easter scents

This month I was slightly stumped when I looked at Niki's fantastic Nostalgia calendar. She has a beautiful collection of vintage floral hats, and I don't. On reflection, I decided that I don't even wish I had a collection of vintage floral hats (something about the squashed flowers, I think...)

So I just decided to put some blossom branches from garden bushes into a pretty jug I bought in Edinburgh last year. I think it works! But at the end of this month I've decided to go a little bit red, white and blue, in celebration of all things British, royal and matrimonial. So you may get a second post about this space under the stairs this month...

The little branch in the jug is lilac-scented honeysuckle. It really does smell of lilac! But the Easter scent in the house right now is a Simnel cake, baking in the oven, and the dough for some hot cross buns, rising in the heat of the baking cake. I know I'm a week in advance - I just had some time this afternoon and have cleared some space in my freezer to hold everything over for a week! What do you bake for Easter?

Easter Celebrations

We had a great Easter Day yesterday - thanks for all your best wishes, and for your own lovely Easter Posts. We went to church in the morning, gardened/played in the garden in the afternoon, and ate together in the evening, continuing an ongoing family game of 'Taboo' between courses.We ate the first strawberries of the year (French) with shortbread made to Sumea's recipe, for pudding.

On the table was a vintage embroidered cloth and a tulip, rescued from the soil, where it was found dry and drooping after having been knocked over by the dog. Our own little Easter resurrection!

The main course came from a recipe I found in Sherri's House Beautiful Magazine.

It was so simple but yummy that I've copied it here for you - I hope you enjoy it!

STUFFED CHICKEN WITH COGNAC

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Serves 4 to 8

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1 whole organic chicken

3 apples of your choice

1 cup chicken broth/stock

3/4 cup prunes

5 shallots, peeled

10 cloves garlic, peeled

1 cup good Cognac

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Season chicken with salt and pepper. Cut apples into wedges. Stuff apples, prunes, shallots, and garlic cloves into the cavity of the chicken, and place some around the chicken. Band the chicken with cooking string to secure legs and wings. Pour broth over chicken.

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Pat some butter over the body of the chicken and roast at 350 degrees (180°C) for 40 minutes. Remove pan from oven and carefully pour Cognac over the body of the chicken. Return pan to oven and keep roasting, basting occasionally, about another 50 minutes or until chicken is done.

Stories of Jesus for Children 9 - Happy Easter Day!

Hello and Happy Easter! The first Easter Day started very strangely for Jesus' friends. They went to check his cave tomb, to see if everything was OK at that sad place, and the huge stone had been rolled away! Some of them just found the empty cave, and wondered what on earth had happened to Jesus' poor body.Some of them came back and told the others that they'd met angels, who had given them good news about Jesus being risen to new life - he had been dead, but now he was alive again! But that was confusing news, too.The first person who really began to understand was Jesus' friend Mary (not his mum - there were lots of Maries in those days!). Mary was crying near the empty tomb because it was all so confusing. She looked up and saw a man, but her eyes were all blurred from the tears and she couldn't see who he was. She guessed he might be the gardener, so she asked him where on earth he had put the body of Jesus.

But it was actually Jesus himself! He said to her: 'Mary...', and when she heard him say her name, she knew it was true - Jesus had been dead, but now he was alive! Can you imagine how happy she was? She told everyone about it, and soon Jesus had gone to see his other friends too, and they were all telling each other the good news.

God is so powerful that death cannot hold him back, and Jesus had been telling the truth all this time - he was God, and death could not hold him!

Why did he die? He did it because he loved you and me, and all the people (ordinary and important), and he didn't want to see us punished for the things we do wrong. He decided he would rather take the punishment, instead of give it to us. So he was doing what he'd taught - being the servant, who helps his people, instead of the bossy king. On Easter Day we can say THANK YOU, JESUS!

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And we can celebrate with eggs (which roll like the huge stone, and are hollow like the empty tomb, and are about new life), and chocolate (which is sweet and lovely, like the good news). But let's not forget Jesus - not today, and not for the rest of the year. He gave his life for us and we can talk to him any time, which is all that praying is. If you want to know more about Jesus, my blog friend Angela did a very good letter to children about him - click here.

Action: Take the stone away from the cave tomb in your Easter Garden - the cave is empty, because Jesus is alive! Put some flowers in the garden, to make it beautiful and full of new life.

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Question for younger children: Did you know that Jesus was going to come back to life, or was it a real surprise?

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Question for older children: What do you think Mary felt like, when she heard Jesus saying her name?

Stories of Jesus for Children 8 - Stopping and thinking

Today is the one day where there isn't a story of Jesus for me to tell you, because poor Jesus was lying dead in his tomb.

Have you put a stone in front of the cave in your Easter Garden? It needs to stay there today. But tomorrow, something amazing is going to happen!

Soldiers stood outside Jesus' tomb, to stop anyone from stealing the body, and sometimes we put some soldiers in front of the stone...

Do you recognise these soldiers?
So, poor Jesus was dead, and his friends and family were very, very sad, and very, very scared, in case the important people came after them next. They hid and cried.

But we have today to try to work out the puzzle: Why did Jesus decide to die? He didn't have to go to Jerusalem. He didn't have to annoy the important people. He could have run away when the soldiers came or told everyone that the important people were lying about him. But he didn't! Why did he let them kill him?

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Now, grown-ups find this hard to understand, and have different ideas about exactly why, so don't worry if you don't understand all of it! But think about Jesus washing his friends' feet. He said that the most important person must be like a servant to the others.

Then remember that Jesus told his friends that the bread was like his body, broken for them. Did we see his poor body broken yesterday? We did.

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He told his friends that the wine was like his blood, given for everyone. Did he bleed on the cross? Yes, sadly he did.

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So there are the clues. Jesus wanted to be like a servant for us. He wanted to give his body and his blood for us, even though it would hurt him and finally kill him. He didn't die because of a horrible mistake, or even because the important people wanted him to die, but he died because he loved us. He died because it would be good for us.

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We'll find out more tomorrow, the BIG DAY!

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Activity: Put some soldiers in front of the tomb.

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Questions: I have been asking the children questions all week, so now it's the children's turn! Ask your grown-ups anything you like about the stories. Leave a comment for me and ask me questions too, if you like! Remember what I said - even grown-ups don't completely understand this - God is a lot cleverer than the best grown up and it's impossible to know everything about him. So maybe you'll ask a question we can't answer!

One a penny, two a penny...

Here is our Good Friday breakfast - apparantly, this is the traditional time to start on your Hot Cross Buns, although we did try a few before the big day...
So, I made my HCBs and they are appreciated in the family and are going to be part of a traditional Good Friday meal that we're sharing with friends tonight (Penny is cooking fish, of course...) I'll try to answer the questions you asked on my post about the dough the other night:
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They are not hard to make but not that simple - if you've made bread before you could easily do it, but it's a bit time-consuming.
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Yes, they do need yeast, which is very entertaining but also the time-consuming part.
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And an interesting fact - the ancient Romans made these, and the four quarters symbolised the four seasons. It's intriguing to see how relevant they became in Christian countries, later on...

My recipe tells me to put the crosses on as rolled out pastry, but I have another which suggests piping on a watery pastry mix - it's never worked for me. Any advice?

Here is our Easter Garden this year - the 'stone' is in front of the tomb, from today until Easter morning. I find the symbolism very powerful. You'll find my children's post for Good Friday below, with some more Easter Garden photos.

Stories of Jesus for Children 7 - the saddest day

When Jesus let the important people arrest him, they took him into Jerusalem and started telling lies about things he had said and done. When people asked him if these lies were true he stayed quiet, and didn't complain. Then they ordered the soldiers to hurt Jesus, and after that they made him pick up a great big wooden cross and start to carry it through the streets so everyone could laugh at him.

Does that make you feel sad? It is a very sad and shocking thing to happen to anyone. It seems even worse that it happened to our kind and loving Jesus, who helped people and told them about God's love, doesn't it?You need to know about crosses - they were the way that the worst criminals were punished in those days. Criminals were put onto a cross for people to look at until they died. It's hard to imagine that because we know how wrong it is nowadays, but in those days it didn't seem so unusual - look, there are two other crosses for criminals, as well as for poor Jesus.

Can you see who has stayed with Jesus? It's his mother, Mary, and the other women who are his friends. The men have mostly run away, because someone might want to put them on a cross too. I'm very glad that some of his family and friends stayed with him, though. They stayed there until he died. Poor Jesus and Mary.

When he had died, a secret friend decided to be brave - he told the women that they could put the poor body in his own special cave. It was a cave for burials. This is what the cave in the Easter Garden is for. How sad the women were when they put Jesus' poor body in the cave.

Activity: Put a cross made of sticks, or a palm leaf one from church, into your Easter Garden, and find a big stone to put in front of the cave - the important people put a huge stone in front of Jesus' tomb, big and heavy so that no one could go and steal his body away.
Question for younger children: Do you like Hot Cross Buns? See if you can eat one today, because the cross can remind us of Jesus. Question for older children: Do you remember what Jesus said about the bread and the wine? He said they were his body and his blood. Does that make any sense when you think about Jesus dying on the cross? (You can eat a Hot Cross Bun too!)

Stories of Jesus for Children 6 - Jesus' Friends

When Jesus and his friends had finished their special meal together, I think they all felt very strange. They knew that big things were happening, and most of them didn't understand what it was all about. One of his friends, Judas, sneaked out of the room, and only Jesus seemed to know where he was going. Jesus asked the rest of his friends to come outside the city with him, to spend the night praying.Can you see Jesus in the picture, looking at Jerusalem and praying? He got very upset when he prayed - praying is talking to God, and Jesus cried and told God that he was feeling very scared about what would happen next. See - even Jesus can get scared.In this picture you can see Jesus kneeling down and praying, if you look very hard (it was dark, of course). Can you see his friends? They've fallen asleep! Jesus was sad and scared but his friends weren't there to help him.

But one friend had done something much worse. When Judas left their special meal he went to tell the important people where Jesus was going. The important people quickly called some soldiers and they all went together to arrest Jesus - to capture him like he was a criminal!

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The soldiers said: 'We don't know what Jesus looks like - how can we arrest him?' Judas told them: 'I'll go up and give him a friendly greeting - a hug and a kiss like we always do. Then you'll know that the one I kiss is the one to arrest.' Can you see Judas giving him a hug in the picture?

So Jesus was arrested, and he let the important people take him away and tell everyone what a bad man he was. It was a terrible night. Everything seemed to have gone wrong. But somehow, Jesus seemed to act like it was OK with him. Maybe he something that the others didn't...

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Question for younger children: Do you sometimed feel scared? Who do you talk to when you feel scared?

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Question for older children: Jesus' friends all let him down. Have you ever been let down by a friend? Have you ever let a friend down yourself?

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Activity: Judas got paid some silver coins by the important people when he gave Jesus to them. See if you can find a silvery coin and put it in your Easter garden, to remind you of this sad night.

What's it gonna be?

Hot Cross Buns, I hope!I'll keep you posted...

Stories of Jesus for Children 4 - Jesus tells us how to live

I told you yesterday that Jesus carried on teaching in the temple, even though the important people there wanted to get rid of him.He told the people a lot of difficult things - some were easy to understand but some were quite confusing, or hard to believe.
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But suddenly he saw something happening that helped him to explain part of what he wanted to say - he saw rich, important people, dropping loads of money into the temple collecting place, letting everyone know how rich and generous they were! Then he saw a poor woman drop in a tiny coin. 'What a rubbish gift for the temple!' thought the rich people. But Jesus knew differently.

Jesus said to his friends: 'This poor woman gave more than all the others. She only had one little coin, and she gave it all to God. They had thousands, and they gave just a little bit of their thousands to God.'
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Jesus said so many things that upset the important people that they were even more sure that they had to get rid of him. They plotted in secret, trying to find a way to get him killed when he was away from the crowds of ordinary people who protected him.

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Question for younger children: Do you like giving gifts? Who do you give them to?

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Question for older children: Why did Jesus say that the poor woman gave most, when she actually gave less money?

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Activity: Have you made an Easter Garden? If you have, could you show a photo of it? Let me know if you do, please! You could also put a tiny coin in your Easter garden to remind you of how we can give good things even if they are only little.

Stories of Jesus for Children 3 - what happened next, and an Easter Garden!

When Jesus got into Jerusalem on his donkey, everyone wondered what he was going to do next. I think he surprised them all - he went to look in the temple, the special place where they worshipped God, and he got really angry! He got so furious because he found people there who were selling, and even cheating, inside God's house. He was so angry that he pushed over the tables where they'd been selling their things.
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You can see who got really mad with him, though - it's the important people again, who wonder where on earth Jesus gets his ideas from. They want to stop him before he does anything else to change the way things work. They like things the way they are!

But Jesus kept on going back to the temple, and the ordinary people loved to listen to what he told them about God, and God's ways. The important people were too scared to stop him when he was in the temple, because there were so many ordinary people there to protect him. I'll tell you more about their sneaky plans tomorrow.

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Question for younger children: Was Jesus being naughty when he got angry?
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Question for older children: Is it always wrong to get angry? What things DO we do wrong when we get angry?

Activity: The best way I know to tell the stories of Jesus this week is to begin an Easter Garden. These are photos of my boys and their dog, making one last year. First, you'll need a container. We used a china serving dish, but you could use a plastic container too.

Put a layer of gravel or broken pot into the bottom of the container.

Then fill the container, most of the way to the top, with soil or potting compost.

Find some moss - that's easy in our garden! I hope you can find some, too, on rocks or under hedges, perhaps.

Press the moss down over the earth.

Use some rocks to make a little cave in one corner of the garden.

If you don't want to use rocks, you could use an old flower pot to make the cave, but you'll need to cover that with moss too. Don't forget to keep the moss nice and damp when you get it indoors - we spray ours with water every day.
Your Easter Garden is ready for now - we'll add different things to it as the week goes on. If you like, you could put a little donkey into it today, to remember how Jesus came into Jerusalem.