We had a very cold Easter (for the South, anyway!) I put some jelly beans in Easter eggs and Jesse stashed them here and there out front. (I also bought Sixlets and chocolate eggs to put in the Easter eggs. Note to self: Never buy Easter candy 3 weeks early again.) Despite the chill in the air, the girls had a great time hunting for eggs outside. It didn't take them long to discover they were filled with candy, and suddenly the Easter Egg Hunt became an Easter Egg Mouthful Meander.
I put a cake mix, frosting, and squirty icing in each of their baskets, one pink and one yellow. So I gave them each a big mixing bowl, a whisk, and a sheepish admonition to stir slowly, then turned them loose. I couldn't get the camera to cooperate at the time, but let me just say, who needs a mixer? Those little weasels wisked until their arms were sore, made scarcely a mess, and had a great time. I only have one cake pan (and it has been sitting in a cabinet covered in dust and cobwebs since the last time Grammy visited.) So we broke out the casserole dish, poured yellow and pink cake mix in opposite ends at the same time, and hoped for the best. The result was a perfectly divided pink and yellow cake. (Around here, any attempt at baking that actually ends up in the oven rather than the trash can is cause for celebration!) So I was feeling pretty domestic at this point and rather proud of myself. Huh-huh.
Once the cake was in the oven, we dyed Easter eggs. I had the presence of mind to hard boil them the night before. When they were done, I left them in the pot to cool and went to bed feeling very Martha Stewart of myself. In the morning they were nice and cooled, and so I rinsed them and set them on the counter on paper towels to dry. About an hour before aforementioned egg-dyeing was to occur (several hours later,) I wandered past Big Ben, sound asleep in his sunbeam, and thought, "The only way that dog could have more gas would be if he owned a Citgo." Jesse and I took gross advantage of the opportunity to hardy-har-har about how bad he smelled and how he rivaled Jesse with even the sounds he makes passing gas. I was feeling rather smug as Jesse headed for the kitchen and walked straight into the cloud of stench. "OH GOD!" came his gaggy and incredulous reaction, "all he eats is dog food! How can he smell like rotten eggs?!"
Nice one Martha.
Once I realized the culprit, there was simply no turning back, as I had no more eggs to boil and two little girls who had been asking, "Mommy, is it time to color the eggs yet?" every five minutes for the last day and a half. Thankfully, we used some new-fangled glittery egg dye that you squeeze on and then roll around in a gloved hand, and it seems to have sealed in the smell.
For now.
When the eggs were successfully resting in their drying dish, the cake came out of the oven, and we headed for Red Lobster for Easter Dinner! (Considering the events of the last few hours, Martha hung up her apron for the day. Not that I ever intended to cook.) When we returned home the cake was ready to go. The pink half got yellow frosting (Lemon, mom!) and the yellow half got pink frosting, courtesy of my two tiny pastry chefs once again. Then I wrote Happy Easter on it, handed over the icing, the sugar sprinkles, and the marshmallow bunnies, then dove for the camera. They had a ball. Rooney wasn't quite strong enough to work the icing tube without help, but she didn't seem to mind serving as Food Critic instead. Natalie iced until I cut her off.
We had a great day, and considering the amount of sugar they ingested, I can't believe either of them is sleeping. Now I'm off to invent a story I can hand them tomorrow morning about what happened to the Easter Eggs! :) Happy Easter everyone!
We re-did the pond, and Jesse put in some new landscaping to cover the barren wasteland that was up against the rock garden. The people who owned the house before us had let the leaves pile up for years, and they had smothered the grass. Looks much better in person, I had a hard time finding a good spot to stand in to get a picture without a hickory tree right in the middle of it.
Look at BabyBug's face. Priceless.
We spent a week in Wilmington at Jim & Sharon's, and Jamie and Bill were there with their daughters too. Natalie and Madeline had an absolute blast at the beach. All Rooney wanted to do was play in the water, which surprised me, because Natalie is usually the fearless one, Madeline, the more cautious. I hadn't figured out at the time how to get my camera to take more than 7 pictures, or I would have taken more. I wish I had gotten a few of the girls with Jamie and Bill. Phooey.
Matching outfits, courtesy of Grammy. I took about a dozen pictures, and I'm tempted to post them all, so you can all laugh at the faces the girls made while I tried everything to convince them to stand still and say cheese. They were having none of it, but I did the best I could!
