Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! Yes it may be a bit late, but I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend. We had a really fun weekend filled with family, and Evie got to do her first egg hunt.

Easter brings about many childhood memories for me, and I hope that Easter will be filled with memories for Evie too as she  grows up. My memories include wearing dresses that matched my sisters, and squashing into the car to drive out to our churches Easter conference. I remember going to the play room where there was lots of play dough and felt board and felt board characters used to help tell all us kids about the Easter story. I remember sitting in on the bible studies and ministry meetings and Mom giving us girls a baggy with Lifesaver candies in it to keep us quiet and distracted. I also have fond memories of making kites to bring to our families Easter picnic at Stanley Park. I even won that contest to make a kite that flew, the trophy is still at my parent’s house to this day. 
On Saturday night Jason and I stayed up doing some final preparations for having people over to our home on Easter Sunday. He worked on preparing the turkey, though I was the one who basket weaved the bacon to go on top, and I put the finishing touches on the bunny sugar cookies I had baked earlier in the week. We both did a frenzied cleaning of the house.

We even decided to be kids at heart again, and we dyed some eggs. Instead of the store bought dyes we tried using natural vegetable dyes. We used red onion for one batch and that gave us a yellow brown colour, and we used red cabbage which gave this incredible blue. Next year we plan to add beets to the mix. Using natural dyes takes a bit longer to get the colour, but it is so worth it. Evie is just going to grow up knowing that the eggs have to sit in the dye over night and then in the morning they will be ready.

Evie’s Easter basket was so much fun to put together, and there was no chocolate in it. She did get a container of her favourite snacks to enjoy. We first got the four mini Winnie the Pooh characters from Hallmark. Then we included sidewalk chalk, Guess How Much I Love You movie, a book called Little White Rabbit, a bunny mask that she got from a little friend’s birthday party but we saved to include in this, and two Boo Boo Bags.

This was her first time searching for Easter eggs, last year she was too young. You would have thought she has done this many times before, as she caught on very quickly to go and collect her Easter eggs that we had tossed around the front yard. The plastic eggs are probably going to become bath toys for a little bit now before we pack them away.

It was so much fun having our home crammed full with some of our family and friends. Both my parent’s and Jason’s were over, and we had friends of ours join us too. It was a full house. We scrambled to figure out seating, and even had my family bring a folding table. Dinner was done potluck style with everyone bringing something to contribute. At one point we had 5 cooks in the kitchen putting last minute touches on everything. It must have tasted good because it was very quiet while everyone enjoyed their meal. Evie even enjoyed her first sugar cookie. I thought we had placed them out of her reach when we needed more space on the island to serve dinner. Wrong. She figured out that she could reach if she opened the door on her play fridge. Thankfully she had already had her dinner, and being the little lady she is she only ate one little ear off of it before giving the rest to Mommy.

Easter Monday was very laid back. I went out early in the morning to do some shopping, and get a few clearance Easter treats for Jason and I. Evie must have been all tuckered out from having fun the day before, as she slept in well past 8:30 am! We went out for a little walk around Tynehead Park, we all needed the fresh air. Evie even walked on her own for a good chunk. Soon it was her nap time though so we rushed home, and I actually suggested to Jason to see if his brother wanted to go golfing. They managed to fit in a quick round of 9 holes while I stayed home with Evie during her nap. We then headed to my parents for the afternoon. Where we were spoiled with another very yummy dinner.

Easter weekend is always going to be filled with family, memories, and lots of meaning for us.