Easter kind of snuck up on me. It always seems to be like that. Matt and I debated back and forth about what we should do this year for Easter. I just wanted to keep it simple and remember the true meaning of Easter. I didn't want to do tons of candy, and things that the girls would use once and then be done with it. I kept thinking, and then the week before Easter at church in relief society my friend Terri leaned over and said we should get the SLLEEJ group together and have an Easter egg hunt and dinner. I said that would be fun. So we got together the Friday before Easter Sunday. We brought our eggs that we filled with bouncy balls, stretchy rabbits, and bouncing frogs. We also brought a crockpot of Gumbo soup, and tortilla chips to share. Everyone else brought eggs filled with different things, and soup to share as well. I had a good time talking to everyone especially my friends becca and Dan. I have missed them! Becca has been hiding in her home writing. She has been super busy. I'm glad that she has been writing because she has had 2 amazing books published so far. So proud of her! Anyways it was fun to catch up with them.
Our plans for the next day were to go out to Clearfield and spend the day with Matt's family. I had to plan this perfectly and hope that they all didn't have plans. McKenzie was invited to a birthday party that was being held at the Boondocks in Kaysville. I didn't want to have to spend the day there, or drive back and forth waisting gas. Kaysville is a pretty far distance, and clearfield is about 5 - 10 minutes away. I made arrangements with the Mom of Kenzie's birthday friend to see if they could take kenzie with them. Then we would pick her up after she had been there for 3 hours. Head over to Jason and Rachaels house after that. It worked well in my head, and was hoping it would work out both ways. I was relieved when it did and would work out.
Saturday Matt took Kenzie over to her friends house at 11 so that they could head out to Boondocks and be there already for the party to start at noon. I started the hard boiled eggs which I tried baking in the oven this year. I found that tip out from my friend Brittany at our SLEEJ party the night before. She said the eggs turned out perfect. I wanted to try it. I set my oven to 325 placed my eggs in muffin tins and baked them for 30 minutes. When they were done I put them in an ice bath for 10 minutes. They turned out really good, some were scorched in a couple of spots. That didn't bother me, just as long as the insides were cooked and not turning gray, or runny. I peeled a couple and they peeled easy, not making a huge mess. I tried one, it tasted great, and matt tried the other. He liked it. What a relief to have the eggs done and out of my way.
After doing the eggs I started making the taco soup to bring to Jason and Rachaels house for everyone to eat. When that was done I got everything together in a cooler, got myself ready so we could leave.
Our plan before picking Kenzie up was to take Maddie to the Sams Club in Layton to do a scavenger hunt. All the elementary schools were having a contest to win a tablet for their school. The school that had the most completed stamped papers would win. We took Maddie and she had fun! We had to find about 6 items, and write down the code. We snacked on super yummy samples as went about finding the items. After we were done we took the paper back up to the front and the lady stamped it and gave Maddie a capri sun, and a fruit snack. Maddie was very happy to get a treat!
We left the store and headed to boon docks 10 min away to go pick Kenzie up. We got there and she was just starting to use her $5 arcade card she had received. We let her play the games. Kenzie shared her card with Maddie. What a good sister! We are going to have to go to Boondocks another time, they have a lot of fun things to do. Kenzie said she got to do everything but a couple of things. 1 thing she wasn't tall enough, and the other was minnie golf. Kenzie still said she had a fun time, and i'm glad!
When we finished up the arcade card we left and headed back to Jason and Rachaels house. The kids were so excited to see each other. It had been a few months since we last saw them. It was good to hang out with Jason and Rachael family and Josh and brenda's family. The kids played outside for awhile, and then we called them in to dye easter eggs. They were so excited! Matt and I brought food coloring to do tie dye eggs, and Rachael and Jason provided the easter dye kit. We brought 2 dozen eggs, and Rachael had more than a few dozen. The kids had plenty to dye. We all had fun, and got messy hands from the dye. Some of the kids were faster and finished quickly so they could go back outside to play. Others took their time and were creative. Maddie just wanted to keep putting egg after egg into the dye. She was funny!
After dying the eggs we visited and let the kids play, and then it was time to eat. The soup was wonderful, the fondue Jason made was wonderful, the chips were wonderful. the brownies and cookies were wonderful. It was all wonderful! I love food!
When we were done eating we decided to get a redbox movie. It turned out to be Rise of the Guardians. It was a super cute movie, we all really liked it. Glad we rented it. Then we needed to head home so I could finish preparing my Easter lesson for primary. When we got home we had scriptures and prayers and sent the girls to bed. We were up pretty late getting the girls Easter baskets ready, and my lesson finished. I hid the baskets in the living room thinking that the girls wouldn't notice where they were. I should have covered them up.
The girls woke up bright and early to see if the bunny had come. They found the baskets right away. Darn it, I didn't want to have to get out of bed quite yet. I was so tired. I thought to myself they know better to dig through their baskets. I thought they knew the same rules applied just like at Christmas time. They aren't allowed to start opening presents, and digging through their stockings. I thought they knew. I was wrong! They started taking stuff out of their baskets, and were going to start eating candy. Yikes I quickly called out to the girls in a nice voice and asked them to come into our room. They brought their baskets in so excited, and said look what the Easter Bunny brought us. Darn it I wanted to get pictures before they dug in. I was excited for them, and was trying to not spoil the Easter Bunny secret quite yet and said let's put it all back in the basket how the bunny had it. They didn't argue and tried to put it back in how I had it. They were close, but it didn't look right to me. I moved it around and asked was this how it looked? They replied yes, and had no clue that it was me who filled their baskets in the first place.
We had to get up and take pictures of them with their baskets, and then they could start opening the eggs, and little toys that were in the baskets. They were happy with what they got. They were disappointed to find out that we weren't going to find the eggs that we had dyed over Jason and Rachaels house. We forgot to put the eggs in the fridge when we were done dyeing them. They were out for hours, and they started to stink. We didn't want to risk anything and get sick, so we threw them away. It was sad. I was disappointed too. The girls understood though, and didn't complaine for very long. We told them that we had another egg hunt and that Matt and I would hide them and not the Easter Bunny. We told them that we would do it after they got ready for Church. They quickly ate breakfast and got ready for church. Matt and I hid the Resurrection eggs. The girls found them happily and then we sat down and opened the eggs in order reading about the Resurrection the real meaning of Easter. The girls really enjoyed it.
After finishing we hurried and got my stuff together, and went to Church. The whole Church meeting block was wonderful. The kids in my primary class listened and participated, and really enjoyed what I taught them. I'm so glad! I was able to go to the combined relief society and priesthood meeting and sit with Matt. It was nice. I stayed after for choir practice, and then came home. We had stuff to do. We were going over to my Mom's house to celebrate. She asked us to bring Easter cupcakes. I had baked them the day before after I had finished with the soup. We needed to decorate them. We were going to make them look like peeps. We had fun frosting them and rolling them in colored sugar crystal sprinkles, putting chocolate chips on for the eyes, and candy corns for the beak. They turned out pretty cute, and tasted wonderful!
After decorating them we headed over to my Mom's house to celebrate. She made dinner for us all. Yummy soup and chicken, fruit, rolls. It was yummy. After eating and having good conversation we went down and watched the second Sherlock Holmes movie. McKenzie watched it with us, and loved it because it has the guy that plays Iron Man. Maddie didn't want to watch it, so she watched The Little Mermaid which we own yet again. She is funny!
After the movie we went up and ate dessert. My Brother Quinn brought cheesecake, and cookies, and some other pastries. My Mom also had Easter candy for the girls. We had our peep cupcakes. We had a lot of junk. We barely put a dent into it. We told him to take the cookies left over cheesecake to his friends. We didn't want it! My Mom didn't want it, and neither did Quinn. My Mom tried to give us the candy, but I kind of refused. We had plenty of candy along with the cupcakes. We decided to call it an early night. My Mom had work the next morning, Quinn wanted to be able to get to bed at a decent time so he would actually wake up in the morning and exercise. We were tired, and I was feeling kind of blah. We said our goodbyes and left. Easter was wonderful. I'm grateful that we were able to have the fun, and the candy, but I'm even more grateful that we got to celebrate our Savior and his Resurrection.
Easter at Jason and Rachael's house:
Easter at our house:
