Easter Weekend 2012

If you ask me, our Easter weekend was just about perfect this year.  For me it started Friday night when I hard boiled about 18 eggs in preparation for dyeing them Saturday and making them into deviled eggs on Sunday.  For the first time ever I had one egg partially split open during the process.  I've had eggs crack before but this was different...it  ended up with about 1/4 of its contents pouring out of a crack but said contents were still cooked and attached to the crack/shell.  It was weird.  Another failed egg was floating in the pot when I went to run cold water over them.  You can guess where that one went!

Saturday afternoon we went ahead with the candy & Easter egg hunt that was supposed to happen Friday morning.  There was still plenty of snow on the ground up here but we all put our kids in their snow boots and let them "hunt" anyway.  We had candy all over the sidewalks and candy-filled eggs on plants and bushes and all over the yards both in and out of the snow.  The whole thing only lasted a little over 30 minutes but the kids had a blast.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate better next year so we can do it the right way!

After the egg/candy hunt, the kiddies and I dyed the hard boiled eggs.  I know that there are some people who dread the process but I look forward to it every year.  I think it's so much fun!  I failed to take pictures of of the finished products this year but I was very happy with how they all turned out.  The kids had fun experimenting with dipping their eggs in different colors (I always do just that with a few of my eggs as well) but I think my favorite one this year was a pretty deep but kind of bright purple one that I turned out.  I left it sitting in the water/vinegar/dye for a good 30 minutes and it was so pretty!  The only egg that didn't turn out like I hoped was my "death egg" (dipped in and dyed every color until its good and ugly).  It's tradition in our family to do one (or more) every year and for whatever reason, mine didn't live up to expectations this year.

On Easter Sunday we opted not to let the kids have their Easter baskets until after church.  We toyed with letting them find them beforehand but decided that like Christmas, we wanted the day's initial focus where it should be...on Jesus Christ.  They kids looked great in their Easter duds and were good as gold at church.  We then tortured them even longer once we got home and took several pictures out back before allowing them to go inside and find their baskets (very complexly hidden out in the wide open on the chairs by the fireplace).  While the kids were trying out a few candies, the Easter Bunny came again and hid our dyed eggs all over the backyard so that the kids could hunt for those.

Once the real egg hunt was done, the rest of the afternoon was spent gorging on candy a bit (kids), making deviled eggs (me) and relaxing together as a family.  Can I just say that I LOVE the deviled eggs my mom taught me to make?  Yum.  We then went to hubby's parents' place for dinner and had a really nice time visiting and playing with in-laws, aunts & uncles and cousins.  Dinner was great as always.  My mother-in-law's ham really is the BEST and I feel bad for you if you've never had it.  To cap it off there were two desserts...a homemade from scratch no-bake strawberry cheesecake and a multi-layered chocolate cake/torte with fresh raspberry sauce.  I helped myself to both and counted the calories null, void and non-existent since it was a holiday.  I'm salivating right now just thinking about the cheesecake...

P.S.  Just have to toot my own horn...I just ran spell check and I made zero errors on this post.  This very seldom happens for me as I tend to type fast and check later.  I'm very proud of myself.  Toot, toot!