Easter

This Easter we are lucky to have my mom and stepdad visiting, so we don't have to celebrate with just our small family. Not that I don't love my nuclear family, but it's a lot of work to make a big Easter meal when Bill hates half the foods and Nathan hates all of them. So this year we at least had a couple more eaters at our house.

First up, the coloring of the eggs on Saturday. When my mom warned him that he might want to change his shirt so he didn't get his nice shirt stained with egg dye, he opted to just go shirtless instead. So we look a little white trash in these pictures.

Easter morning we all miraculously slept in until 10 a.m.! And the Easter Bunny had come!

Nathan wanted to have a basket for his two Pooh bears (Squishy-Nose Pooh and Bangy-Nose Pooh). He made cards for both Poohs, which I stuck in the basket. Also the Easter Bunny brought them each a small container of honey, as shown:

Nathan was excited about everything in his basket, including these "marshmallow cheeps."

Leia examined the contents of her basket: cat treats, a pet hair remover, and a mug with a cat on it. Cats love mugs.

My stepdad, who I call Uncle Dan (even though he is not my uncle) loves the chocolate/peanut butter combo. Here he is with his Reese's eggs.

After baskets, Nathan hunted for Easter eggs:

When all the eggs were found, my mom and I cooked while the boys played Pitch Car in the living room.

And also Penguin Pile-Up:

The last time my mom and stepdad came for Easter, Nathan was 6 weeks old. My mom got him the most adorable bunny outfit to wear for Easter. This year I dug up the outfit and dressed a teddy bear in it, holding the picture of Nathan wearing it.

Before dinner, I researched the Weight Watchers points values for the items on the table, and wrote up a plan for what to eat. Then I brought my annoying measuring cups to the table. Here's a picture of my place at the table, before we ate:

My family's Easter tradition is to make jello eggs. My mom's aunt used to start collecting real egg shells (with the innards blown out) right after Christmas, then filling them up with jello for Easter. Right before Easter dinner, all the women in the family would shell the eggs and make a pretty garden of jello eggs with cubes of lime jello as the grass. It felt like a special rite of passage the year I got to join in, even though in actuality shelling all those jello eggs was a big pain. Now that the jello egg aunt is no longer with us, we carry on the tradition, but we have plastic egg molds instead.

The jello eggs always look really pretty:



Oh and also, Nathan was thrilled to come to the table for Easter dinner:

Everybody else was a little bit happier:

The meal was turkey, cranberry sauce, gravy, fruit, pasta salad, jello eggs, asparagus, and crescent rolls. Here's a picture of my plate after I measured everything out. That's a 20-point Weight Watchers meal. Fortunately I had been ridiculously disciplined this entire week, so I had my 49 bonus weekly points left to spend.

I also like how the crescent roll is like a sombrero for my plate.

For dessert I made two pies, strawberry pie and margarita pie. I got both pie recipes off the Weight Watchers website, so they were diet-friendly. The margarita one had actual tequila and triple sec in it (plus lime juice and ice cream), so it tasted just like a margarita.

I hope you all had a meaningful Easter, Passover, or Sunday!