Jack at 5

Appropriately, Elle brought candy & prankster gifts

from Rocket Fizz, a retro candy and toy store we discovered in Camarillo, which opened a branch near us, too.

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Our sweet little imp. Even his attempts at rebellion are kinda lame.

The cartoon characters adorning Carolyn's ice cream cake are from a BBC French language program called Muzzy - one of Jack's favorites. He actually enjoys hearing the French vocabulary being recited!Katherine won't be able to do this much longer. Jack's last doctor appointment had him jump from 25th percentile to 50th!

Resurrection Day!

Carolyn's artwork graced the west wall of our warehouse church, providing a focal point for the Good Friday service & Easter feast; we beheld ham, actually.
The week began with a Passover seder at the Carters', the Jewish symbolism folded within Messianic fulfillment - another non-lamb event, chicken.

I go through this every year. Easter is historically THE Christian holiday, having only been recently supplanted by the double whammy powerhouse of Christmas' commercial & familial values. Scrooge was named Ebenezer as a pointed dig against Christians, who disparaged the holiday. The Puritans, you may know, actually went to work on Christmas.
But the lovely AWANA egg hunt & teaching hit me funny this year. M & J (and we) love the youth focus, but the total event, including the chorus in one of the songs - "God's not dead, I feel him in my toes..." - didn't charm me this year. Christianity is so private in the modern world, so even our more public events come off either as ridiculous or childish or just odd somehow. They seem weightless, culturally speaking.