Easter 2012

For some reason, I don’t always do a good job of celebrating holidays. I like holidays, I just sometimes fall through with putting out the effort. But since Thad is getting a little older, I am feeling more and more guilty for letting anything pass without celebrating. I feel like I would be cheating him a little bit. So for Easter, we pulled out most of the stops. Decorated eggs, gave Thad an Easter basket, went to Justin’s family’s for an egg hunt and ham dinner. The obvious thing that we didn’t do is go to church. I’m not quite ready to tackle that one yet. Even though he doesn’t know why we were doing any of this, Thad still had a good time, so I’m glad we did what we did.

I didn’t get stuff for his basket until the day before Easter, and let me tell you, Walmart was at it’s FINEST. It was pretty ridiculous. But, I made it out alive and got some good stuff for him. Elmo plate, new sippy cup with TRUCKS!, some egg-shaped chalk, a stamp pad with alphabet stamps and some bendy bunnies. He did also get one candy item, some Peeps, which were used as a bribing tool during his next haircut.

He had a great time dying eggs with Daddy.

And then later eating 2 of the eggs. The first one he cracked playing with it, so we peeled it and let him eat it. The second one he hulked in half while I had my back turned, so I let him have that one too. Gross.

In the afternoon, we went to Justin’s cousin’s for an early dinner. I had offered to bring some desserts, and made a couple of new recipes.

I made Salted Caramel Popcorn from a recipe on Pinterest, which was really tasty but kind of a pain to make and SUPER sticky. It wouldn’t have been as big of a pain if I hadn’t let a saucepan of boiling sugar burn to a CRISP on the stove. That was a mess to clean up, and I had to make a second batch. But, it was a big hit with people. I would probably make it again doing a few things differently: Obviously, try not to burn sugar, duh, and I would also use less marshmallows than it calls for to see if it turns out a little less sticky.

I also made some frosted sugar cookies, and I have to say that they were right on the money. I have made the cookie recipe before, but didn’t like the frosting recipe that went with it. So, I searched for a different frosting recipe and found this one, which is fantastic. I expect 3 things out of frosting on cookies: I want it to taste good, I want sprinkles to stick to it, and I want it to harden so you can stack cookies. This recipe covers all three.