Happy Pass-Ster

Happy Holidays!
Another busy week for Mr. Cheeks. The religious calendars matched up this year and Ben got to celebrate both his first Passover and his first Easter this week.

We kicked off the celebrating with an afternoon of egg dyeing at the Koops' house. Mommy had fun dyeing eggs and Auntie Leah had fun with Ben!

Tradionally, the Begoun family (Emily’s maternal side) gets together at Cousin Marcy and Harry’s house for the seders and this year was no different—well, except for the presence of the newest member of the family.

Ben was quite well behaved and mellow, as he almost always is, but did seem a tad overwhelmed at all the noise (or maybe it's because his pants were hiked up to his arm pits!). Welcome to the family, Kid!

Today is Easter and we celebrated with Grandma and Grandpa Rivera. We made it to the 8:30 service at Trinity Lutheran Church (the Riveras' home church) where Ben slept through most of the service—remarkable because of all of the loud congregational hymns accompanied by the brass ensemble!

We then went home for a short siesta and headed back over to the Riveras for Easter lunch. Ben was lucky enough to have both sets of grandparents present, but he was a tad out of sorts from all the schlepping around today. Plus he seems to be battling his first real cold. Poor dude.

Jonathan and I feel very strongly about exposing Ben to both his Jewish and his Lutheran roots, as well as to his Russian, German, Polish and Filipino heritage. He’s a human melting pot!