Rewind: Easter 2011

We had a great group here for Easter this year. My parents were in town since my baby bro was graduating from law school at BYU down in scenic Provo that weekend and we were thrilled to have them join us for the holiday.  Along with them, we had my two brothers who live in the area and their families, my one sister-in-law's mom, and my dad's only sister and her daughter. Prior to the big dinner, though, we had our traditional family events...

Hunting real eggs - beautimous egg dyeing courtesy of my mom and yours truly - in the backyard. Hudson figured out the whole E.B. thing on his own this year and got to help hide the eggs and find them. He's being a good sport and egging his little sister on about the E.B. as long as she wants to believe. Pun intended.

Pictures of the family with the kiddies in their new Easter outfits. I am never 100% thrilled with how the pics turn out but it's real life, right?

In addition to egg hunting and pictures, the kids each had an Easter basket with a small toy and lots of sugary goodness waiting inside for them when we got home from church. Hudson also got to help with picking the goodies for the baskets this year but his toy and a couple of particular candies were still a surprise for him.

Now for the meal... Thanks to the ingenious design of my hubby, we were able to seat all the adults (and Hannah in her high chair) at one large table in our living room (rest of the kids were in the spill-friendly kitchen). It was made up of three folding tables side by side and we were able to cover the massive creation with my two large white tablecloths. We girlies enjoyed ourselves setting the table with my Wedgewood Basketweave china, glass goblets, and individual S&P shakers, and dotting it with pitchers of water, little duet bowls of jams, baskets of rolls, one of the cakes I made for dessert, and a small sampling of my decorative Easter egg collection. It wasn't anything super fancy but I loved how it turned out.

 Our dinner this year consisted of super delicious ham (using my mother-in-law's INCREDIBLE homemade glaze recipe), sour cream scalloped potatoes - the kind with Corn Flakes on top, perfect homemade rolls from my one sister-in-law, homemade jams thanks to my sister and I (too bad she and her family weren't here to join us!), an amazingly delicious fruit salad from my other sister-in-law, and a tasty green salad from my sister-in-law's mom. For dessert I made a lemon bundt cake (I always think of My Big Fat Greek Wedding when I use the word "bundt") and a Texas Sheet Cake - half with chopped pecans, half without. The whole meal was all so very yummy and there were enough leftovers at the end for everyone to take a bit home. I'm starting to drool just thinking about the meal again...mmmmmm!

That evening, after everyone was gone, Claire decided that she needed to spend some quality time in and with her dear old friend, the high chair. She quickly climbed up and slipped into her old happy place. Too bad she's gotten too big for it - getting her out was quite the ordeal and her legs were a bit scraped up on top from the process.  Maybe she'll finally be cured of climbing in after that whole fiasco...we'll see.

Next up: another rewind! Maybe I'll be caught up one of these days...