The Rebecca Jeanne Routine: Easter!

Right before Easter on Thursday we headed down to Pittsburgh to visit Brian's mom and brother. We stayed with them through Saturday before coming home Saturday for Easter liturgy. We didn't think we were going to make it down until Brian found out the company he is currently working at was off Friday so upon learning this on Monday we were able to switch gears and make plans to visit. It was great to spend time with Brian's mom and brother as we haven't seen them since Christmas time. We also were able to visit with Brian's grandparents on Friday which was nice. This was Tucker's first time visiting down there and his longest car ride. He was fine for almost the whole ride until we hit the hills of PA once we got off the highway about 20 minutes away. I was actually just about to tell Brian to slow down because I was getting carsick when the smell permeated the entire car from Tucker getting carsick first! We had to pull over and of course Brian had left his pack of wipies he normally has in his car at the land the weekend prior. So with some old receipts and a random dried out clean looking baby wipe found outside the car on the ground we cleaned up his little crate he was traveling in (thank goodness he was in the crate, it could have been worse!). We drove the rest of the short commute with windows down trying not to get sick ourselves! The drive home was much less eventful thankfully.

We made it home in time to bring the dogs in, unload the car, put together our Easter basket to be blessed after church (as in go and buy everything!), hard boil and dye eggs, find and purchase a dress (since I realized I have nothing to wear!), dye my hair, both of us shower, and make it in time for church in less than a 4 hour time period! We hustled but were able to get it all done and honestly it didn't feel too rushed!

(Our basket - take note of our "lamb butter". Being in a time crunch we had to improvise for the traditional lamb butter!)

(Elise's, my parents, Greg's, another member of our church's basket, and then ours)

When we got home we started our quick whirlwind of things we had to get done!

We planted our tomatoes and sweet pepper seeds in hopes for some seedlings (yes we are over a week late in getting the seeds sowed!)

Now it's hanging out on our kitchen windowsill. We will be planting the other seeds that don't need as much time to grow near the end of April.

We also were in charge of bringing the desserts for Easter to my parents. We made two pans of the strawberry pretzel stuff, deviled eggs, and then wanted to make those jello eggs we use to have when we were kids. We couldn't come across a jello egg mold so we decided to make our own! Ends up my dad did locate the molds but never told us so we just did the DIY way! The real trick was finding plastic eggs that had no holes, ended up spending more than we liked as the only eggs with no holes came pre-filled with crappy candy that was super expensive! We figure now that we have the eggs with holes in them we will keep reusing them so it'll pay off itself in time.

Once we drilled holes in each top we sprayed each with cooking spray and wiped them out

We made each jello flavor in jiggler form which just means you don't add the cup of cold water at the end so they end up being firmer and keeping shape. We boiled and mixed in the jello then poured it into each egg mold.

We found a mini muffin pan holds them perfectly!

The next morning we gently opened the eggs! We did notice though the jello that was once filled to the top after being in the fridge shrink a bit so you end up without a perfect top to the egg which is fine.

Ended up coming out perfect and being in the tray were ready to serve!

In the morning we did our first (possibly annual) doggy egg hunt! We filled a few plastic eggs with dog food. It was quite the sight to see the two run around with the eggs. Meeko quickly figured out how to purposely bite down gently on the eggs to make them open then he would abandon the egg for the dog food. Tucker didn't figure it out but was happy to join in when Meeko opened each of them!

His proven process!

Found one!

Mine!

After we went to my parents house. Everyone was there and we enjoyed our traditional money egg Easter hunt. Each year the Easter bunny hide eggs for the kids still in the house which are found in the morning. Once that is done there are several shiny metallic eggs that are filled with different dollar amounts that my parents put out. This year there were 6 eggs and it was almost a whole Medvid sweep! Brian and I ended up finding 4 out of the 6 eggs with myself finding 3 of the 4! We had the typical Easter Sunday meal that comes out of the blessed basket.

GT enjoyed the Penguins hockey stick and balls sets his Uncle Brian got him! The Dr. Seuss book and Horton plush toy wasn't as big of a hit, but I'm sure once home he will love them too.