A Perfect (mostly) Easter Sunday!

Easter Sunday was really quite a perfect day, and, as per tradition, it began even before the crack of dawn as the boys and I all made our way in our PJs and blankets to the top of the play thing in the backyard where we read the accounts of that very first Easter morning out of the four gospels as we waited for the Easter morning sun. We sang a hymn and discusses the glorious things that occurred on this morning so long ago.

So how, do you ask, do I get my children to willingly get out of bed so early on a weekend? I entice them with this:

Yep, that sticky, gooey coffeecake is really that good - good enough to rouse a sleeping teenager! The recipe is super simple, and you can get it on my creative blog here.

But before we dove into the that warm gooey, nutty pile of butterscotch goodness, we first have to see what happened to our Easter Story cookies that we made and sealed in the tomb (oven) the night before. The oven is unsealed and the meringue cookies are waiting for us inside. For the whole recipe and scriptures to the Easter Story cookies click here.

After our early breakfast it was time for the Easter baskets followed by the consuming of vast quantities of candy until our house looked like a candy wrapper jungle (I think Dennis swept at least ten times that day!)

Of course, one thing that made Easter so perfect was the fact that is also happened to be General Conference, and I just love Conference! The kids somehow all managed to settle down so we could watch and listen to the words of our church leaders. Some took notes, some worked on their packets, and some played conference bingo (they are very skilled at that game after all these years!) We were all together and doing our best to hear everything. (I have since re-listened to the whole conference when I had more quiet moments. It has to be that way. It was even better the second time through!)

Conference was wonderful, and so many of the talks spoke straight to my heart! I think the highlight of my whole Easter Sunday was when the Prophet spoke the most beautiful and moving Easter sermon I have ever heard, followed immediately by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing "He is Risen!" It was so inspired, and had me in tears of joy and gratitude for my Savior!

In between conference sessions, while I was busy baking cakes, pies, and the yummiest, butteriest dinner rolls ever, and decorating for our Easter feast, the boys were busy enjoying the perfect cool, sunny outdoors - like picking flowers for the table and when that was done, catching bees.

Yep, they were catching the bees that were buzzing around the lavender. A wonderful Sabbath activity. Brilliant children. First they were catching them in zipper bags until Caleb learned from hard experience that bees can sting right through a plastic bag. That's when they switched methods, and started catching bees with in their plastic Easter eggs. Quite clever, really. No chance of being stung - once they are inside the eggs. Um, except it doesn't make the bees very happy and there is still a good amount of danger before they get in the egg and after it is opened. Luke was the second victim. I'm surprised there weren't more, frankly.

My dear sweet perfect child Dylan handed me an egg, said it was a gift from Derek, and told me to open it. How generous of him!

A word of advice: Never open an egg offered to you by one of my boys, especially if it is buzzing.

Then, just after conference was over, the Lord decided to shake things up a bit for Easter and send a pretty strong earthquake our way. Scrambled eggs! I was not actually home at the time, but was at my friend Shari's house dropping off something. The windows started rattling and the ground started rolling. The water was sloshing back and forth in the pool! I rushed home to find everything well there. It was apparently a 7.2 on the Mexican border, quite a large shake, but since it was kind of out in the boonies, there was not too much damage, luckily. I thought of how it had just been mentioned earlier that day in conference about "earthquakes in diverse places" in the last days, and thought that they surely will be in the not-so-diverse places as well.

Needless to say, I have spent the past week revamping my 72 hour kits, and redoing my whole food storage rotation system. There is nothing like a good earthquake to get you to implement immediately some of the things you learned from conference.

Shortly thereafter my sister Lisa's family came over. They were driving and couldn't believe that they missed the whole quake.

But the kids were ready to continue with the Easter festivities and kids wanted to waste no time getting to the egg hunt - everyone except Luke, that is, who refused to participate. He had fallen asleep (probably because I woke him up so early that morning), slept through the trembler, and had to be woken up for the egg hunt. This did not put him in a good mood, poor kid, so he opted out of the hunt. Oh well, more eggs for everyone else.

Ayden was so funny, insisting on carrying two baskets, just in case one got too full. I don't think it was the best strategy, because hauling two baskets kind of slowed him down.

After the egg hunt, everyone had worked up quite an appetite. Easter dinner was wonderful! Honeybaked ham, strawberry spinach salad, asparagus, homemade rolls, jello eggs, and deviled eggs! So good!

And for dessert, cupcakes, a lamb cake, and Italian Easter pie (for the adults - the kids wouldn't have appreciated it's subtle flavor and the $20-per-pound pine nuts the recipe called for -yikes!)

Lisa's deviled eggs are amazing!

But for the kids, I think the jello eggs are the favorite, hands down!

Once all the food and festivities were done, the cousins just enjoyed what remained of the beautiful day while the adults talked. The kids stated playing egg toss, which wasn't too exciting with hard-boiled eggs, so the game sort of transformed into a lemon toss, using the readily available lemons all over our yard, which they found much more exciting.

When life hand you lemons... have a lemon toss!

What a perfect Easter Day (minus the earthquake, candy wrapper messes, bee stings, and a grumpy 4 year old) to spend listening to our leaders, enjoying the company of family and the beautiful spring weather, eating yummy food, and remembering our Savior and why we are celebrating this perfect holiday!