Pascha Banquet

I don't know if anyone has any pictures of our family actually at our Pascha (Easter) service. We did attend. Both Maggie and Susannah slept through a good part of it. Our friend and the kids' babysitter, Rebecca took several nice photos at the brunch party after the service, however. I stole them from her Snapfish account. Is that legal?

Maggie and her Becca, who might be as excited as Maggie is when they get to hang out. She has as much energy as Maggie does too.

Beneath this adorable smile is another child. A child who is not necessarily agreeable. A child who refuses to don an Easter dress that was talked up all day. Ok, granted, it was a little scratchy and made out of polyester... and I probably wouldn't have wanted to wear it either. But it was so cute. Little pink flowers, big poofy white skirt, a gift from friends at St. George. Oh well. Anyone need a size 3T Easter Dress? Like new. Never been worn.

The kids had plenty of energy even though this was probably taken around 3:30AM. Maggie felt particularly comfortable, obvious from the fact that she has removed her shoes.

I put Susannah in the wrap so I could get some food from the buffet. By the time I returned to the table from the fairly short line, she was out. It was also this evening that we discovered the mythical cheering powers of "Sue-nanna's George" as Maggie calls him. If you look closely, you can see her clutching it in her sleep. Actually, this one is Maggie's -- he's wearing a red shirt, not yellow.

Maggie looking fairly pleasant. I think there's a pizza smudge on her face. For brunch, we had the usual breakfast fare, with the interesting addition of cheese pizzas on every table. It was an Italian restaurant, so I suppose it fits.

Eventually, Susannah roused herself to join in the festivities.

One of the All Saints traditions we all look forward to is Joseph's Vodka. Doesn't go with scrambled eggs, and isn't especially appetizing at 4AM, but it's tradition and we are Orthodox. Christ is risen!

Uncle Hal and the college table consuming theirs. I'm sure Joseph checked all their IDs. I'm sure he did the same for the high school table as well....

Maggie loves her Uncle Hal. Mommy loves her coffee.

At some point, Maggie procured one of the large balloons from the table centerpieces. Of course she wanted the pink one.

And she was off!

She ran around with that thing for a long while -- circling tables, full speed ahead with the balloon bouncing along behind/above her.

She was quite attached to it. And I attached it to one of her shoes (she wasn't using it) so we wouldn't have to explain to her why we couldn't retrieve the balloon from the ceiling. I think the balloon followed us home and hovered around the house for several days during Bright Week.

Here's the whole family: kids, Mommy, Daddy, and Hal. (Totally unrelated to Pascha: we were at the zoo recently and Maggie was looking at some fish. She said, "There's a Mommy fish. There's a Daddy fish. There's a Hal fish." Every family has a Hal, right? Where's your Hal?)

Christ is risen! Indeed He is risen!