Easter

Well, I think I have recovered from a very busy Easter weekend!  I had decided to do quite a bit this year because Kinnley is at the age where she can help and she understands more.  Plus, I usually decide to bite off more than I can chew anyways.  I am happy to announce though, I did everything that I wanted to for Easter this year!

We started out with coloring eggs.  Last year I let Kinnley put stickers all over the plastics eggs instead of coloring the real thing.  I didn't want to deal with the mess and I knew she wouldn't be able to do it by herself last year.  It worked out great and she still got to 'decorate' eggs.  This year we went for it...we dyed eggs and she LOVED it.

Tired of waiting on mommy to get everything 'organized'.

Before

After



She did great and she loved writing/coloring on the eggs with the wax crayon.  I have only boiled eggs a few times and had to have my mom refresh my memory of how she does it.  I started with 17 eggs...we used one egg out of the dozen and a half...and I am happy to say we ended with 17 eggs.  Well, 17 eggs made it thru the boiling stage, but only 16 make it thru the Kinnley decorating stage.  The one poor lost egg was enjoyed by Kinnley.  That is, until she got to the 'dirt' and refused to eat any more.  I was totally lost until she showed me what the 'dirt' was...it was just the yolk.

I had found some new blogs that I have enjoyed looking at and one, eighteen25, had a great Easter giveaway craft.  It was 'Bunny Tails', which you can find here.  I was originally going to send these to the babysitter's with Kinnley for all of the kids there, but the horrible wildfires at the lake kept them away from there last week.  So, instead we took them to church and handed them out to the kids.

I think they turned out super cute.  They were super cheap and super easy, so it is definately something I will keep in mind for next year!

Remember The Pioneer Woman?  Well, I have now officially made three of her recipes and all three have been wonderful!  I made mini meatball sandwiches last week for dinner one night.  I had leftovers, so I cooked some noodles and we had spaghetti and meatballs the next night.  I could have divided the recipe in half and only cooked what we needed, but price wise it made more sense for me to cook the full recipe and then add some noodles the next night for an additional dinner.  If you have a bigger family, then this might not work for you.

For the church dinner Sunday, I made bow tie lasagna, which is easy, cheap, and delicious.  Can you tell we like pasta at our house?  When I fix spaghetti, Kinnley eats the noodles and leaves the meat and the majority of the sauce!  I try to use whole wheat pasta when I can.  I had a box of the whole wheat bow tie noodles, so I used that here.  I added a can of Italian diced tomatoes and some grated parmesan cheese.  If you fix the whole box of noodles, you will definately need at least a jar and a half, if not two jars of sauce.  I only had one, so the diced tomatoes helped a little.

For my dessert I made her pig cake.  Why it is called that I have no clue because there is absolutely nothing that has to do with pork in it.  I guess it's called a pig cake because it's so good you pig out on it?  It calls for very few ingredients, all of those are cheap, it's easy and it's quick.  (Do you see a pattern with my recipes...they all seem to be cheap, easy and quick.  They have to be with two kids and a husband who is still a kid himself sometimes!)

Sorry I forgot to take a picture before church, so you get one with half of it gone.

This is probably the most moist cake I have ever made!  I'm definately not the best at baking, but this turned out great!



Have I mentioned that I'm in love with her website?  You can get these recipes, as well as many others at The Pioneer Woman's website. 

We thought Ben might have had to work Sunday, but thankfully he didn't.  We were up bright and early Sunday morning to do our egg hunt at the house and then get ready for church.  After church every Easter, we have a potluck dinner...we Baptists like to eat!  After the lunch, the kids hunt eggs.  Kinnley has come a long way from her first Easter.  She nearly had a nervous breakdown when her feet or hands would touch the grass!  (Some would say she gets that from her mommy, but I don't know if I'd agree with that.)

After their egg hunt...Easton saw something he liked in his sister's basket!

Run Kinnley Run!

Found some!  Such a sweet big sister gave the football & basketball 'eggs' to brother!

We got Kinnley a cheap digital camera for Christmas, and she loved it.  The problem is that it only holds 25 pictures and the resolution is horrific.  We had looked at the kid friendly cameras, but I wasn't going to spend $50 on one of those when I could spend $25 on a regular digital camera that had the same stinky resolution.  Her camera seems to be the one 'toy' she still plays with from Christmas on a regular basis, so I think we will get her a little bit nicer one for her birthday.  In the meantime, she likes to practice with my camera.  I think she's pretty good for a 3 year old.

Hi Daddy!

Daddy & Aunt KiLee

It's tradition that we take a family snapshot each Easter...so here is ours from this year, plus one of Kinnley that Daddy took...I'm in love with it and am going to get a big print made.

(Yes Easton has a mohawk for Easter...fits his personality so far!)

That's my Kinnley girl!

I hope everybody had a wonerful Easter.  Have a great weekend.  It looks like it's going to be me and the kids for most of it because Ben is having to work....I need to go grocery shopping...me plus two kids...Yikes!