Happy Easter!

I hope you all had a happy, fun filled Easter weekend! I know we sure did :)  Our celebration started on Friday afternoon with an egg hunt at a local park that was organized by our awesome playgroup! There were 38 kids in attendance with their parents this year and over 450 stuffed eggs!! (WOW!)  Having read so many news stories recently about bad behavior (primarily by parents!) resulting in community egg hunts being cancelled, I was extra-appreciative of our well-mannered, friendly group of families this year.  The kids were divided into age groups to hunt (with the youngest starting first) and each child hunted until they had 12 eggs and then sat down to examine their goodies.  There was no pushing, shoving or bad sportsmanship in sight (that I saw anyway!) ;-)  We had a great time!

After the egg hunt we drove up to the church for Good Friday Mass.  The boys were really interested in the Easter Triduum this year, which was neat and they were particularly excited about Good Friday.  As we came closer to the veneration of the cross Big-Bug kept whispering to me "I can't believe I get to kneel to the cross!" :)  After we waiting in the (long!) line of parishioners and had our turn to pray we were walking back to our seats and Big-Bug exclaimed "THAT WAS AWESOME!" hahaha

Saturday we spent most of our time working around the house, catching up on the laundry and the floors, mowing the lawn, etc.  I ran up to grab Chinese take out for dinner that night and hesitated as I placed my order.  My husband always gives me a hard time for over-ordering when I get take out (I will admit that I do!) but I really felt like I should order TWO dinner combos instead of just one.  The bugs are unpredictable eaters and can range anywhere from one ity bity bite at dinner to out eating my husband and myself combined.  I went with my gut and ordered TWO dinner for two combinations and I was SO glad I did!  Because every single last speck of food was consumed, with the bugs doing more than their share of the eating :)  After dinner we colored our Easter Eggs! This year we used sharpies and stickers instead of traditional egg dye and it was a lot of fun!  We were able to be a lot more creative with our decorations AND it was way less messy ;-) 

On Easter morning we woke up to an indoor egg hunt and basket surprises!  There were new sunglasses, bubbles, sidewalk chalk, stuffed lambs, cadbury eggs and chocolate bunnies for the bugs and even travel mugs and chocolate bunnies for mom and dad! (What a nice bunny)  ;-)  We had a perfect breakfast of whole grain pancakes, hard boiled eggs, organic sausage and fresh berries and then got ready to head to mass.   We arrived half an hour early and were SO glad we did - the place was PACKED!  After mass we came back home and spent the day playing in the yard, drawing with sidewalk chalk, swinging on the swing set and riding wheely things! 

I also spent a fair portion of my day in the kitchen prepping dinner of course ;-)  This year I did a spiral ham in my crock pot with a honey spice glaze and fresh pineapple rings.  On the side I served scalloped potatoes, steamed green beans with Parmesan and homemade challah bread (which was my favorite part of the meal!)  For dessert we had old fashioned vanilla Tillamook ice cream with fresh sliced strawberries - it was delicious!