The Octave of Easter

We’ve had a wonderfully busy 2 weeks here in the Korvemaker household! One of the biggest events was Spencer’s baptism! Both his godparents, Kate & Darryl, were able to make it, and his Nana also has spent some wonderful quality time with him and celebrated his entrance into the faith community!

My mom arrived on Good Friday and just left yesterday, and what a blessing that visit was! Not only did my mom & Kate help watch Spencer so that I could get extra rest, but they also helped us re-organise our living room to make it use the space better, and they did dishes while here, and they were wonderful company!

The wonderful thing about the timing of Spencer’s baptism and both my mom and Kate’s visit was that it was during the Octave of Easter.

It is a curiosity that the biggest celebration of our faith, Jesus rising from the dead, is not the main celebration of most Christians. For most, Christmas is the main celebration. While Christmas is indeed important, Jesus’ birth would be meaningless had he not risen from the dead. Christmas is one day to celebrate his entrance into the world. By comparison, Easter day lasts 8 days. It is one loooooong day because it is such a HUGE celebration! Andy and I decided last year that we are going to truly partake in this celebration. I am sure in years to come we will define how we do this more thoroughly, but this year we feasted for 8 days.

I made up a luxurious menu plan for the Octave.

Sunday we had an all you can eat brunch with Andy’s cousin’s family at a superb restaurant. It filled us for the whole day.

Monday we had our huge turkey dinner and thoroughly enjoyed it!

Tuesday we devoured deluxe nachos (and by this day Katie had joined our feasting – so much for the new lifestyle eating you had been on, eh?).

Wednesday we enjoyed perogies and sausage (yum yum!!!).

Thursday we were going to originally have beef tenderloin steaks. However, my mom had just made puff pastry that day, and so we had fillet de boeuf en crute (sp?). Basically, we wrapped the steaks in puff pastry along with sauteed onions and mushrooms, and had a tasty tasty sauce with it. Oh, my mouth waters just thinking of it.

Friday we had rack of lamb! Sooo good! Andy and I learned that Katie does not like olives, which became a consideration as the rack of lamb was olive encrusted (yuuuummy!). So I came up with another crust that was herbed while she and my mom were busy clearing up the table. Katie had never had lamb before. We dished it all out and ate our fill (we have a picture of this one), and loved it all! Then Kate made the comment, ‘It was really good! It didn’t even taste like olives!’ ‘Well,’ we informed her, ‘yours wasn’t olives.’ ‘Oh,’ said she. ‘That would explain it.’

Saturday we had enchiladas, a recipe we learned from our friends the Fletchers. Again, so very very good, and we were very pleased when Kat and Marc came by just at the tail end of our dinner and ate the remaining enchilada. I don’t think we would have been able to either stuff ourselves with it or stuff it in the fridge, which had been getting more and more full.

Sunday, the last day of the Octave of Easter and Spencer’s baptism day, we started with eggs Benedict. Over the past few days we had been busy as bees in the kitchen getting appetizers ready for the reception after his baptism. We held ourselves over with light snacking, and we finished our feast of Easter with tons and tons of appetizers that we shared with our guests!

It has been a wonderful, wonderful Octave of Easter. I’m looking forward to what we come up with next year.

Yum yum dessert at the brunch!

Lamb rack! Olive encrusted, except Katie’s. Yummeroo!

Eggs Benedict on a Sunday morning!

Adult afternoon out while Spencer’s Nana enjoyed some quality time with him!

Spencer’s baptism.

We were so pleased that Fr. Kevin Beach was able to facilitate the baptism for us. It meant a lot to us to have someone whom we knew well baptism our little boy. It was a great celebration – Kat and Marc led us in a couple songs, Spencer wailed as he was immersed in the water, and he concluded the ceremony by pooping in the white towel that wrapped him. It was a great evening. And then we had those who were able to make it over to our place to eat and eat and celebrate Spencer’s initiation.

The baptismal font Spencer was baptised in.

Sequence of Spencer being baptised.

Hanging with the Iversons

Andy and I with a newly baptised Spencer!

And that basically concludes the wonderful events of the past 2 weeks. Oh! In the midst of the Octave of Easter, Spencer gifted us with starting to smile regularly!! It’s been so rewarding to have him smiling at me. My mom thinks he’s just on the cusp of laughing, but I think he has another few weeks to go before that one comes.

Power to the people right on.

Enjoy the pictures – there are more up in Spencer’s gallery, and there is a new gallery called Octave of Easter.

Related posts:

Easter Tuesday! Happy Easter! The Octave of Easter Easter Sunday