Holy week & Easter

It was a great time in our family to spend the Triduum together. We made Pesaha drink on Maundy Thursday and took it to our JY centre to share with other friends. Attended the washing of the feet in St Charles Boromeo church.

On Good Friday, children helped in kneading dough for making hot cross buns. It was delicious fresh from the oven  with plenty of butter. It was great to see bigger kids did the way of the station carrying the cross n said prayers. We went for special Good friday afternoon service in JY centre, Annu n Vid were the altar servers. 

The eggs have been colored by Vid, Vib n Sam. Many other children joined too on Holy Saturday. There are all sorts of lovely things to make for Easter.

Children made some Easter baskets to hold the eggs which they they gave some Easter eggs for their friends.

Easter Branch

We picked some tree wands that are just beginning to bud  and put it along with tall daffodil buds which seems to be sprouting symbolises new life. Many decorated Easter eggs were hung on the branches.

Easter egg decorations
 Easter shells were prepared after blowing the egg by making a tiny hole at either end of the egg which was a very new learning to me. Blow through the hole gently and firmly through the egg and the contents will come out. This is laborious and messy process, though Munnu enjoyed blowing the egg.The egg shell can be decorated in any way you like.

 Children even made Easter banners for Easter morning.

     Undoubtedly the most exciting thing was to take part in Easter vigil ceremony in St Charles. To see the Easter fire and the Paschal Candle being lit from fire, very exciting to Theresu. We thought to have roast lamb the traditional dish with roast potatoes and boiled vegetables and carrot cake decorated with soft cheese icing and M&M cross.

It was  great to see egg hunting on Easter Monday, Kidoos enjoyed hunting though it was quick one. Nice to see that  all big children shared with small children and they had some small gifts in the Easter basket.

Children hunting eggs with squeals of joy outside the centre and in the car park. It seemed to me a very good symbol that they are looking for eggs which symbolize the new life.

It was a blessed  week  and had a beautiful time with many other JY's in Sheffield center.

We are Easter people, Alleluia is our song- St John Paul 11

Fencing

Munnu has very recently started going for fencing lessons with Four of Club. As part of it,he just went for a Fencing competition in Stoke.

History of Fencing says this sport was originated from epee fights in 15th century. This is one of the longest running sports in Modern Olympics. Fencing was the game practised by the Father of Modern  Era of Olympics ( Baron Coubertin)

         Munnu's team won gold medal

Stained Glass Painting

 It was great to see the spirit moving as I wanted to do stained glass painting with my children; munu came up with a library book for boys with the same painting.

Stained glass is another very old art form. The first use of glass happened more than  3,000 years before the birth of Our Lord. Glass is made by heating sand and ash together.

In the middle ages the windows of many churches were made up of many pieces of brightly colored gla. The pieces were held together by lead strips, which looked black.

First made window arch out from a card stock. Stick that on a white construction paper.

Then draw horizontal and vertical lines like those in the picture.

Children drew the picture of a knight.

These lines should be covered with strips of contruction paper. The lines make the speces for the colored glass.

Now color in the spaces.Use the color wheel and choose the clashing colors to go to next to each other such as red and green. Use bright color.

Now cut narrow strips of black construction paper about 1/4 inch wide (we were short of black paper, so we used different color). The real lead strips are not straight , so it does not need to be straight.Glue the strips.

Neutral black makes all the other colors stand out.

Below Stained glass window is from St Patrick's cathedral in New York city. Majority of the windows were made in France near Chartres Cathedral which has the greatest collection of 13th century stained glass.

You can observe how the outside colors shine through the colors and the lead band separates colors.The light shines through the beautiful windows remind the the way God's love and grace shines through our souls when we follow His commandments.

Zootropolis

We went to watch Zootropolis in VUE cine hall , Salford as part of Into film. Into film is one of the world's fastest  and extensive growing film education programmes. Walt Disney's animation studios' Zootropolis is a  comedy adventure  by Byron Howard. Theresu was  bit scared in the beginning, though enjoyed as a family. Munnu wants to do some animation inspired by the movie.

Our sleeping Geo got up later to watch the movie..

Zootropolis is a mammal city where  all animals live together and you can be anything; the officer Judy Hopps a first officer bunny arrives and tackles the mystery. It was a nice movie and many Home Schoolers were for the show.

Someone's Eleven-

Annu was quite excited about her birthday and as a family it was decided to have a quite birthday this year. She is very keen into ballet now and  had a ballet performance a few weeks ago

Annu turned 11 now. So thankful to Lord for all these years of Annu kutttan with us. Since she is learning ballet , decorated her room with Ballerina theme . Purple is her favorite color and decorated our lounge with some ballerina cut outs and purchased a purple watch, an overcoat and some stockings which she was asking for sometime for her birthday.

Made some chicken biriyani , as an excuse for lent.We had meal together and went for H.Mass , visited one of her friend's family.

        Cake was cut when Annu and Munnu went for choir practice. I tried to decorate the carrot cake with sprinkles and icing like a tutu, didn't turn out exactly like I originally envisioned. But it was a yummy one as the birthday girl wanted carrot cake rather than the usual chocolate one.

At Home

              We love you Annukutty. Happy Birthday.

Crown of Thorns

For this Lenten season, I purchased a grapevine wreath for making crown of thorns.You will need  a wreath, black dye and  a box of toothpicks ( I used  smooth, round toothpicks), you can either put tooth picks in a black dye overnight ,leave overnight to dry it.

Once they are dry, you can wedge the toothpicks all over the grapevine wreath. Toothpicks can be inserted into different slots in the wreath and tension of the vine hold it in.

The crown of thorns symbolizes Our Lord's many pains and sufferings. I encourage children to do a sacrifice or a prayer and pluck each thorn in some way hope to amend the sins that caused the suffering, Our Precious Lord endured. This year children are doing Crown of Thorns instead of  Jelly beans and I said all the thorns they plucked is putting into their own Jars. By Easter it will be all turned into a Jar of sweets.