Christmas blessings...

Although this is a few days late, and my posts have been far and few between... Merry Christmas! Hope you had a lovely day, celebrating with family and maybe even pondering why the holiday exists.

We were stuffed to the gills.

We went to midnight church.

We were given far too many gifts.

We spent quality time with our nephews.

We were delighted when loved ones appreciated homemade gifts.

We caught up with family not often seen.

We praised God for his son Jesus's birth.

What did you do?

Easter weekends...

Easter is a lovely time of year and a truly joyous celebration. Sure, it is strange to celebrate the death of someone, but the someone who die did it to give life and to build relationships! Truly amazing! Plus, Easter is also about his life, his resurrection and thus God's triumph over evil once and for all. I know not everyone thinks this though, as one of my colleagues this week reported that it was a "depressing holiday" and couldn't understand why Christians celebrated it.

For the weekend, which is only half way though, we have spent time with friends and enjoyed a slower pace of life! With the exception of getting up early to make hot-cross buns for Good Friday church. Despite their lack of crosses, they were beautiful and went down a treat.

These hotties are a bit of a tradition in our house. I've made them for the past three years, and always feel that we need more. One thing I'm not sure of is why they are only eaten at Easter. These are now made with the amazing red kitchenaid mixed the hubbie gave me for my birthday last year. They smell delicious and are very satisfying to make. We have been try to get some traditions going. Another thing we do is eat a fish-and-potato pie, care of Nigella. Every year we aim to watch The Passion of the Christ, but sure enough this year our DVD player would not read the disk. This was exceptionally frustrating, but perhaps another year.

We've not sent out eggs or gifts this year. We were simply too disorganised. I did make those fabric Easter eggs though, and sent all a picture of them and a simply profound bible verse: Unless a kernel of wheat dies and falls to the ground, it remains a single seed. If but if dies it bears much fruit.

The gliding bird...

An image to kick it all off. I drew this bird as part of a Swap-bot postcard exchange. Swap-bot is a website I'm moderately addicted to. The idea is simple. Someone creates a swap theme and comes up with some rules. All Swap-bot members can usually join, and when the send date comes along items go into the post. A few weeks later mail arrives!

This swap was for a hand drawn image of a bird to be made into a postcard. I used a section of this image in my postcard and then sent it off to sunny California. The card's recipient Swan is also Christian, so I was encouraged to include a verse from the Bible. It talked about God caring for bird, so if he does that he must care about humans even more.

I love the look of the wings in motion in this image. The bird is gracefully coming to rest on a somewhat flimsy perch. Ah, to fly and be purple!