I always had my patent leather shoes and pocketbooks, and of course the straw hat and even gloves. I remember the way we used to dress up on Easter. I used to get a new coat every year when I got older and had a job. I always hid the little chocolate eggs for my kids, made baskets and colored the eggs. Oh how I hated coloring those eggs. They made such a mess. But I loved the things my grandmother made. They were like giant cookies wrapped around an egg. They had frosting and colored sprinkles or something on them. I used to eat the cookie but not the egg. I don't like eggs unless they're chocolate.

Don't dress up anymore for Easter. I think I'm having my kids over and cooking come to think of it. Sometimes we go to my duaghter's house, but I think I'm doing it this year.

Louisa

Chatty, it's cool you had different cultures in your house!!! Altho' I don't think that's so strange...

Nik, Sam and I always made Easter eggs a week or so before- to decorate the house. It was a little family thing - we brought out the cups, the dyes, and all the new stuff to decorate - we did this for all the years, even to the last. I kept their baskets for as long as they would hold up. Only last year, did Sam's give way...and every year, Sam would want me to hide his basket - Nichole didn't want anything hidden - I don't know where Sammy got this idea, my own parents never did that...but I would do as he wished (Nichole and I would conspire to see where we would hide it)...One year, we decided to put it on the front porch, with an umbrella over it, because it might rain......Sammy eventually found it, wet all through with egg dye everywhere, and chocolate bunnies melting into easter grass.....the umbrella had blown away!!!!! I was only SO glad he had a sense of humor and thought this was funny - ate the stuff anyway!!!!

We always put Easter baskets out at the bedside of all 3 daughters so that when they awoke on Easter morning, they would find them, then we would eat breakfast, dress in our new Easter outfits, hats, gloves, the whole nine yards, then go to church and celebrate a risen Lord.

Then we'd come home, eat ham and scalloped potatoes and let the girls hunt colored eggs then eat deviled eggs for the whole next week!

Growing up we would color eggs the night before. Easter morning after breakfast we dressed in our new Easter outfit and went to church. The church back then had an Easter egg hunt right after church. I remember always trying to help the smaller ones find eggs. I was happy to see them happy.After dinner, we would visit the "old folks home". Each of us would give part of our basket to the "old" folks that did not have visitors on a regular basis. We would sing Jesus loves me and a few others and try to make them happy for this was the day the lord had risen.

Two Easter memories: One Easter when my daughter, Alicia was only two, we bought her a new pair of Johnny Jumpers, those tall white lace-up walking shoes...I dressed her in her new clothes, bonnet and all but she seemed excessivelly fussy all morning and every time I set her down she would lift her foot and whine.

We went to church and she continued to be fussy and wanted to be held. I couldn't get over how moody she seemed to be until we arrived at home and I took her new shoes off...her big toe had been bent under the whole time inside her shoes!!

Needless to say, I checked to see that all toes were flat and tucked safely inside from then on.

Another Easter memory is when Alicia was only 1 month old. She became very ill and wouldn't stop throwing up. The doctor didn't know why and had me take her to the hospital where she was admitted. This was on Easter eve. They ran all kinds of tests on her but could find nothing. I was so fearful that I couldn't even hold her....I couldn't stop crying.

A rather large and comforting nurse came into the room and held both my baby and I and assured me she would be alright.

I stayed awake all night and watched her tiny form in that huge metal bed and prayed. Early Easter morning when the sun had just started to break, I looked out the window and there were the silouettes of three crosses on top of a Cathedral in the background. I felt God's comfort and assurance that just as I loved my baby and desired her health to return, God loves His Son and understood my feelings completely.

Number5, I'm getting such a kick out of the fourms today. I'm laughing at your daughter's toe. What a riot.

Your beautiful story about the three crosses reminds me of my return from my first visit to my son's college 10 hours from home. I was so happy for him and thought the college was perfect for him, but was concerned that it was so far from home.

Our plane home was delayed due to rotten weather. When we finally boarded, I peeked out the window to see what others were humming about. There was this beautful rainbow gracing the sky. I took it as God's promise to me that he would see to it that my son would be cared for during his college years while he was so far from home. We need to stay awake to his grace. It suorrounds us!

There are so many reminders all around us. What a blessing to be able to recognize them when they are in our reach.

Someone once asked me how I know when Christ speaks to me, if it was in an audible voice or not. I had to think about that for a while and realized that He speaks to us in as many ways as we are able to recognize. Everywhere in nature we can see the love of God. The Bible says that when a wren falls to the ground, God knows. The rainbow, Dotsie, was no doubt God's love for you and His assurance of His care for your son.

I see God's love in the special love a mother has for her child and when someone does a selfless deed for someone else, when a pet goes for help for their owner who is injured or needing help, when that check comes in the mail at just the right time, when a friend calls in answer to a prayer and becomes the hands of God, and in so many ways too numerous to mention.

I hope and trust that I will see the mighty hand of God at work tomorrow in the life of my daughter. I know He loves her at least as much as I do and wants the best for her. I still blame myself for much of what is wrong with Katie and that's why I share in her experience and feel I need incarceration or a "program" just as much as she does.

I like to remember Abraham when God told him to offer his promised and beloved son, Isaac up for a sacrifice instead of the lamb. Isaac asked his daddy, "Dad, where is the lamb we are to sacrifice?" Abraham answered his son, "God will provide the lamb," knowing that it was to be his son. We have to be willing to offer our children to God who holds title to them anyway. They are only on loan to us.

Of course, the end of the Abraham and Isaac story is that God was testing Abraham's love and devotion to him. When Abraham drew the knife to offer his son, Isaac as a sacrifice to God, God said "Stop, the lamb is caught in the bushes."

(If I were Isaac, though, I would never go with my dad to offer sacrifice again.... )

Hope I don't offend anyone by interjecting a little bit of humor into this. Easter more often than not falls in the middle of the Passover season. Although our family has never kept a kosher house, we traditionally stick closer to the rules at this time of year -- mostly out of tradition. My kids loved the passover treats my mother made for them. They also loved the Easter Candy noth grandmother's gave them every year.

It was hard to convince my m-i-l in a nice way not to serve ham to us durimg Passover, but I thought I'd finally got through to her. Until one year when I came down to her kitchen and could smell the bacon frying. She was beaming as she set it on the table beside the matzo she had bought especially for us. I gave her a big hug, then ran up to warn my kids not to say a word and that it was fine to eat the bacon. It's a wonderful memory that they still treasure.

Family holiday celebrations can be and should be anything that brings us closer together.

NHJackie the innocence of this womans deed is charming to say the least....it reminded me of something my Fathers immigrant Lithuanian mother would do....