Cook, Create, Do & Love: Easter 2017

I decided to make Nina's pound cake to bring to Bonnie's for Easter. It turned out really good for what I think was my first attempt.

I have to say, I'm also pretty proud of my photography and food styling skills on this one...looks like magazine quality to me.

I bought a natural egg dye kit which came with a piece of wax you could draw on the eggs prior to dying to leave un-dyed. Stella thought this was pretty cool, but I found it somewhat difficult to do because the wax was the same color as the egg so you couldn't see where you had drawn or written anything.

We had to supply Stella's school with 15 stuffed plastic Easter eggs for their school egg hunt. Stella chose to fill her eggs with the magic sponge things that dissolve in the bathtub.

Just in case someone didn't know what they were, I had her slip in a little note in each egg.

The night before Easter, Donald and I had a 24 hour date. Don and Wanda watched Stella for us, so on Easter Sunday all we had to do was get up and check out, then drive straight to LaGrange where Stella was waiting on us.

There was Aunt Bonnie's famous, amazing, delicious fresh fried chicken and lots of tasty sides. And of course, there was an egg hunt at Aunt Bonnie's. I had Wanda bring my actual camera to get some really good shots of all of the kids, but it was dead. Oops. So no proof of the egg hunt there, but I know it happened.

Stella played really well with Claire and Ava. She ended up down at Anna & Joey's house in the pool and backyard. I got to hold Baby Elliana-Ava's new sister while Stella hung out with her cousins. She played SO hard all day. Oh and ate what I estimate to be more candy on Easter than she has consumed in the past two years. Seriously! It was insane and I couldn't stop her without watching her every move or making her leave. When left that evening it only took her a few minutes and she passed out. The plan was to transfer her straight to bed, but that didn't happen. Instead Stella ended up in a weird position in the chair with the worst look on her face. She looked absolutely miserable. When I confronted her about it she said she felt bad. Her tummy hurt. She felt sick. I thought she was going to puke everywhere and honestly? I kind of wanted her to so she would see what can happen when she eats too much candy. But she didn't. We talked about how candy is yummy, but how it's not good for us. It does not make our bones and muscles grow strong and healthy so we just have to eat little amounts. I'm finishing this post a few weeks after Easter and we still talk about how she felt that day, every few days. I hope it sticks with her as a reminder of how crappy she felt when she overindulged in the sugar department.

With us not being home Easter morning and gone all day, I had a talk with the Easter Bunny and asked him to make a special delivery on Easter Monday. I didn't really mention a whole lot to Stella about the Easter bunny bringing her anything so it was a surprise when she woke up Monday morning and found this stuff in the living room.

The maple creme egg was for me and the Justin's peanut butter eggs were for Donald.

How precious is this little ceramic dining set my mom found for Stella?!

And in the top right hand corner-see the white, orange, green and yellow ball-shaped thing? It's hand crocheted Easter eggs Aunt Bonnie made. Just adorable.

Stella got socks, a new bubble wand, stickers, wooden alphabet blocks, Roll-A-Story dice, another George figurine (to go with the one she got at Lolli's for finding a special egg), Spring themed cookie cutters, and a few Spring themed activity books. My mom had also given me some candy for her basket, but due to the extreme amounts of candy the day before, I reserved all but a package of bubble tape.