Happy Easter!

I found out mid week that Mary Ann and the girls were planning a two week visit to the States and would arrive in StL on Friday night. So the kids and I started to make plans for a long weekend (no school Monday!) visit to the homeland. Despite extremely cold temperatures - it was colder this weekend than it was during the Christmas holiday - we had an amazing visit with the family and I've put together some picture collages to show some of the things we did...


Daddy hard boiled two dozen eggs and the kids pulled out all their creative juices and drew designs on the eggs with colored pencils and crayons - everything from swirly lines (scribbles to the untrained eye) and thick rings, to poke-a-dots and zig-zags. The end results were magnificent and made for a yummy breakfast Monday.


Suzanne had her birthday while we were in Nevada, so we opted to celebrate while everyone was in town this weekend. Mary Ann made her famous 'silly hats' and an amazing chocolate soufflé cake. And of course the kids helped Daddy make/decorate a sign they hung above the bay window.

For dinner, Suz requested a couple of recipes out of the latest issue of Food&Family - fish cakes and baked fries. We made tuna cakes, crab cakes and shrimp cakes - I think we all liked the crab cakes the best, although all were very yummy. Mom made the baked fries for lunch Sunday to serve with the ham and used baking potatoes and sweet potatoes. The sweet potatoes turned out wonderfully! I've been looking for a good sweet potato fry recipe and this one fits the bill!

Sunday while we were at church Joe and Suz played Easter Bunny and prepared an Easter egg hunt for the kids in the backyard. We were lucky that the weather had warmed to about 48-50 degrees much warmer than the day before making an outdoor hunt possible. And the kids were very good at sitting for a few pictures after collecting their eggs.