Easter 2006

when did Easter become as nuts as Christmas? With kids and grandparents it's getting as busy as Christmas. Hatching a plan on what we were doing this year for Easter was more of planning a full scale campain then hatching a plan.

Easter Eve.... 6:30pm.... Jenny got home from work. The plan of attack for the night. Frost 4 dozen cookies (luckily they had already been baked the day before), frost and decorate a cake (again luckily had been made the day before) for a Easter get together at Aunt Carol's. She could have easily just done one of the two dessert items in question and it would have been fine, but leave it to my wife to overkill. Not like there won't be a TON of food there anyway. Making the process longer, we decided to make the cake into the shape of a bunny, which required both of our expertise in geometry to make sure we cut the cake just right so the bunny ears were even. Quite a few ideas for templates and layouts were used to assure Bugs' ears was correct. I had to make sure that all camera's batteries were fully charged and had had space for pictures. I find out that the digital camera is full (I don't have a very big memory card) so I decide to dump the pictures onto the laptop, and at the same time load the pictures into our flickr account. Of course with only dial up at the house this will take FOREVER.

Easter Eve....8:30pm....After kid wragling for an hour to get them fed and asleep in bed I finally go down to the kitchen to see that a powdered sugar bomb has exploded in the kitchen. This stuff is everywhere. Jenny informs me that she spilled a little while making the frosting... a little? I set up the laptop to load my pictures into the flickr account. I figure I can load in pictures while I frost cookies. Bunny cake is cut and Jenny starts the decorating process with the tools and talents that she received from her cake decorating classes. The decorating process is pretty boring, but we are at the kitchen table and can't see the TV which is showing the good version of the Ten Commandments. I decide to put a movie on the laptop to watch while I download pictures. The fine cinema that we pick is Montey Python's Holy Grail. It seemed a bit sacrilegious to have the Ten Commandments on the TV and the Python gang quest for the holy grail in the kitchen. I am all set and ready to decorate my cookies when Jenny informs me she has to make frosting for the cookies... huh? What do you call that huge bowl of fluffy stuff right in front of you. That's when I learn the difference of cake frosting and cookie frosting (silly me). So another layer of powdered sugar in the kitchen and I have my frosting. So multi-tasking of frosting/decorating cookies, downloading pictures, charging batteries and listening to "the knights that say NI". We are finishing up and it's 1:00am on Easter Sunday. I head for bed and Jenny heads for couch (she has to wind down first).

Easter... 5:30am... The alarm goes off so Jenny can get up and go to 6:30am service with her parents. I call it the "Crack of dawn service". I have been to this service a few times but we decide not to try and get the kids up and upset them. I was truly heartbroken that I didn't have to go :). (Actually thinking about it, with the time change it was 4:30am real time) After waking her up and listening to her get ready I fall back asleep.

Easter... 6:30am.. I get up.. My plan is to get a shower and start the process of feeding, bathing, and clothing my two sons so we can get out the door by 8:00am to get to my church service. Ah the fun of living in a mixed marriage of different faiths. We usually don't go to both services every week, but we do for the big holidays. So, I get ready, get my youngest son fed and dressed for church, wake up my other son (big surprise) and throw him in a tub, and get him dressed. Jenny came home during the process and we actually made it out the door by 8:10am.

Easter... 8:30am.. met up with my mother at our church and we were able to sit next to her in the standing room only church. Kids act pretty good for most of the service but William is ready to go about 3/4 the way through mass.

Easter... 10:00am.. Brunch at my mom's house. A nice selection of baked goods and fruit. My mom gave up alcohol for Lent so we popped open a bottle of Champaign for memossa's but we decided "screw the orange juice" and just drank it straight. Of course my mom went nuts with gifts and stuff for the kids. That singing dancing bunny is going to be heading for the closet real soon now. We stayed there and visited until about 12:00pm.

Easter... 1:00pm... Lunch at Aunt Carol's house. We had went home after mom's and changed clothes and fed the baby. Aunt Carol's was the usual fun of kid's Easter egg hunt, kids running all over the place with toys, and TONS of food for lunch. Luckily Jenny's parents and brother were there too so they could chase down William while we vegetated on the couch. We finally headed home around 6:30pm.

Easter...8:00pm... I am attempting to put William down to bed. He doesn't go down quietly when he has had a nap in the afternoon. Jenny has passed out downstairs. Finally William falls asleep around 9:30pm or so. I go downstairs and just shake my head at the carnage of the kitchen and head to bed.