EaSteR

A few Easter festivities...

My rabid bunny. :)

Collin made these {bunny ears} at the Family Room a couple weeks ago and was quite obsessed with them for a while.

 We went and saw HOP as a family last Saturday evening. Collin did pretty good- with a steady stream of snacks and candy.

 Weston's first movie!

I'm pretty sure I enjoyed it the most of anyone. It was delightful! But I'm sure you knew that given my fondness for personification. Plus it had a rockin' soundtrack. My favorite part was the end when the chick's body would dance involuntarily to the beat of the drum. Those that have seen it know what I'm talking about, right??!! Hysterical!

 The Reester Bunny came! Collin's first basket of goodies. It was much enhanced by the Easter package that Grandma Paula sent. He was thrilled with all the balls, snakes, and dinosaurs. Thanks, Paula! (And yes, another shot of one of his {faces}.

 When we got home from church we heard some scuffling at the back door and opened it to find two Easter baskets left by the "Easter Bunny" aka our next door neighbors. It was so sweet. Collin's basket was shaped like a basketball (which he LOVED and still won't let me put it away) and they both were filled with outfits, candy and little toys like a bubble maker. We lucked out with our neighbors for sure!

 We kind of started a tradition our first year of having a big Easter dinner at our house. I don't know why I sign myself up for these things because it always turns into a lot of work, but of course I'm grateful afterward for the good time. We hauled our beastly kitchen table downstairs and put the 3 extra inserts into it. This year we squeezed 15 adults around it! I'm also getting a soft spot in my heart for the missionaries now that my brother is one, so I invited both sets of Elders from our ward over. We had had them over for dinner earlier in the week and when I asked what their Easter plans were, they said they didn't have any and commented that holidays on the mission were actually kind of depressing. Sad!! So I had to fix that! I'm really glad I invited them. They thanked me a million times and were so excited to be there.

If you look in the middle of the table you can see the sad, little place cards I made. They kept falling over and were buggers to put together!

Here's a close up of one. They are made out of Q-tips so it's a cheap craft but I wouldn't recommend it!

 After dinner we dyed and decorated our eggs for the Egg Bash later.

 Here is the aftermath of dinner. I made the pinwheel banner as an Easter decoration and that's a craft I'd recommend! Cheap, easy, and cute! You can find the tutorial HERE.

Can't forget the lamb butter!! Someone asked if I made this. Haha, no I have not taken up butter carving YET. :) You can buy them at Wegmans during Easter. I love that the flag on it's back says Alleluia. The only problem is that when I pulled it out I thought it looked weird, then realized it didn't have EARS! What the?!

 I made this Yummy Berry Trifle for dessert and it's a seriously sinful indulgence. I got the recipe from Crescent and it's super easy so I thought I'd share:

1 c whipping cream (whipped)

3 (8oz) pkgs cream cheese (softened)

1 c sour cream

2 c powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp almond extract

*Mix together above ingredients

1 large angel food cake (broken into pieces)

*Stir into above mixture

2 bags frozen berries (I combined raspberries and blueberries)

*In a trifle or glass bowl, layer 1/2 of the white mixture, then one bag of berries, then the remaining 1/2 of white mixture, then the last bag of berries.

I would recommend putting it together about 2-3 hours before serving so the berries have time to thaw a bit. It makes a lot but doesn't last well past a day so make sure you have enough people to eat it all!

(This is super rich and I love it... but I think next time I'm going to try substituting 1 pkg cream cheese for a container of cool whip and see how that goes. Maybe then I won't feel like I'm directly adding cottage cheese to my thighs)

 Ok, back to Easter... next we went outside for an egg hunt! Collin's first egg hunt and he did great. We have had untold amounts of rain the past couple weeks [our basement carpet is getting wet!! :( ] but the yard wasn't too bad. I didn't get a shot of all the kids with their baskets, but Megan did, so when I get that from her I'll add it in. In this picture you can see the Carter's little girl, Kadence, aka, Collin's first love. He adores Kadence. On Monday I was trying to coerce him into getting his shoes on so we could head to a birthday party and he wouldn't cooperate until I said Kadence would be there. I had previously listed a bunch of other friend's names, hoping to get him to cooperate, but it wasn't until I mentioned Kadence that he was excited to go. This is how it's been for a couple of weeks. He will randomly say her name and expect to get to play with her. She is the the calmest, most docile little girl, so I guess it's true... opposites do attract! :)

 Here are the missionaries chillin' during the egg hunt. They did help hide the eggs though!

 On to the Egg Bash. Super embarrassing.... I was running around like a chicken with it's head cut off Sunday afternoon, and I guess I didn't boil the eggs long enough. Some of them hit too hard and cracked open, oozing nasty, half-cooked {eggness} all over! Sick. I won't make that mistake again. Glad we had the sheet underneath or my carpet would have got it!

 Ryan was the winner! Funny, cuz all he had written on his egg was {Winning Egg} when he decorated it.

Elder Bryson was a close second place. The missionaries LOVED this game. I had told them about it earlier in the week at dinner and I guess they boiled like 2 dozen eggs and had a competition with their district later in the week. They all went on and on about how cool it was and how they were going to make it a tradition in their families too. It was cute.

Other events on Easter Sunday included my younger brother David, giving his farewell talk in church. (He actually left this morning! Shed a tear!) I was so sad I didn't get to be there to hear it, so my AMAZING cousin, Leah, took time out of her crazy Easter Sunday and went to the church in the Young Women's room and held her cell phone up to the speaker so I could listen!! She is the best! Her poor arm was probably dead afterward. It made my day to be able to hear his talk. I was in tears afterward. I can't believe my little, chubby cheeked brother is all grown up and going on a mission! We only got to Skpe for about 3 minutes last night before he was set apart and according to Travis's observations... he was "trippin'" :) I can't imagine how it must feel to know you are hours away from spending 2 years in a 3rd world country. Be good to him, Honduras!

 The day after Easter brought sugar guilt accompanies by the realization that we had not partaken of the Reester Bunny! Collin loved it. And no, we did not let him eat the whole thing.

 Here's Weston in his Easter duds! He had his 2 month appt. a couple weeks ago and weighed in at 10 lbs. 13 oz.

 I cannot resist these scrumptious cheeks! He's looking pretty chunky in this pic. He's such a love. I really can't get enough of him!