Easter 2012

Wednesday: Flew to Iowa and helped wrap up funeral preparations. 

Thursday: Funeral

Friday: Burial

Saturday: 6:30am flight back to Utah. Spent the afternoon/evening in a coma shopping for Easter food and basket goodies.

Sunday: Easter . . .

Kids waking up to their cute little baskets that Peter Cottontail barely finished filling mere seconds before the first awakening. (Will's left over birthday balloons . . . )

Peeps for my little peep:

We usually do "Easter Bunny Saturday" and "Resurrection Sunday", but with our schedule the way it was this year, we squooshed it all into one day. Baskets, egg coloring, and Easter brunch all done by 10:30am:

Kate tried this more complicated technique with some ties that I bought LAST year for this very purpose:

We'll have to do more of these "tie-dye" eggs next year, and get to DI a little earlier in the season. Apparently this is a big hit around here, because the cheap silk ties remaining when I went shopping the day before weren't the most attractive. Even so, the results were a lot of fun:

A friend brought these by for me on Saturday after our Iowa trip. So sweet! 

(You can imagine that Easter was a little more meaningful for us this year. . .)

Monkey bread:

This breakfast casserole:

Elizabeth talked me into buying the cheap hats and purses displayed at the entrance of the grocery store on Saturday. They were half off and made them feel special, so why not? I took these after church and before dinner:

I did NOT prompt Rachael even a teensy bit. Don't know where this came from, but it sure is cute:

Best shot of the day:

(Kate didn't want her picture taken. Poo!) 

Prime rib, candied carrots, parmesan asparagus, au gratin potatoes, and Brandon's favorite Pillsbury crescent rolls. (You didn't really think I was going to make homemade rolls on top of ((and in between)) everything else, did you?) 

This pretty much wrapped up my day:

I was glad when they finally took over, except that someone accidentally swept a small screw down the sink and it jammed the garbage disposal. Don't you just love that? Brandon look like he does:

After all the Easter Bunny stuff in the morning, we attended church in the afternoon, watched a movie geared toward children about the resurrection, had a short indoor Easter egg hunt, then did our usual Easter story told through plastic Easter eggs. (There are many variations of this, here's just one. My mother-in-law made us a set several years ago and we've been using it ever since.) Our day ended with me giving everyone a different spiritually minded book that I thought they would enjoy. (I bought THIS for myself and it became our backdrop for the day. I especially like to crank up "Ode to Joy".) 

Monday: packed like zombies and drove to Zion's National Park for our spring break. That's where we are now, and tonight while dining on fish tacos al fresco at The Bit & Spur, I started to feel like I was on vacation. I mean, a nice family trip. (There's a big difference, you know.)