Our Easter weekend in Pictures

I hope everyone had a wonderful and happy Easter. We had a full Easter weekend but it was a bittersweet holiday. It was our first holiday without MIL. While it was a nice quiet weekend, it wasn't the same without her. We have also figured out that we only know how to cook for a big crowd when it comes to holidays, today there was my gang and my mom, and there is enough food left over to feed at least another 2 families. We will be eating leftovers all week.

Good Friday we went down to Centre Island for Eggstravaganza. We bought a family pass off of Groupon, and so it seems did half of the GTA. We waited in line for over an hour to exchange our online pass for tickets and wristbands and to get onto the ferry. We were enclosed in this little area, people were on top of each other like sardines. It wasn't a pleasant experience. Once we finally got there it was more of hurry up and wait. Everywhere there was a line up, for rides, for the egg scramble and for food. We waited in one line for a ride and after 1/2 an hour we left because the girls were hungry (and we were no where close to getting on the ride). We then ended up waiting in line for pizza, which didn't have enough pizza for everyone (we got the last slices the people behind us had to wait for the next pizza to be baked). The girls managed to get on one ride before we decided to leave and try and salvage our day.




And here is Tutu having a nap through all this.


I had really high hopes for this outing. I really wanted to make it up to the girls that we haven't had much fun outings as a family. I thought we would go and enjoy the day on the island, search for eggs, ride some rides and enjoy one another's company. Instead it seemed like I failed. We could have had more fun at home. Lesson learned.

Once we got home we did one of the girls favorite activities from the weekend. Colouring Easter eggs. They had a lot of fun and made some colourful creations. My mom helped us out so that I could document the process.






And while the girls were colouring the eggs, Tutu stole the egg dipper and was running around the house with it.



Saturday morning we assembled our baskets, with our eggs from the previous day, some kielbasa, bread, salt and sugar lambs and chicken to bless. Every year we bless our baskets of food at the Polish church and we eat the contents of the baskets for breakfast on Easter Sunday. When I was a teenager I was in Harcerstwo (Polish Girl Scouts) and I would help with the blessing ceremonies. I have fond memories of this days (I spent the day at church with my friends and didn't have to help with any of the Easter preparations at home).






And here they are at church all blessed.


After that we went to visit some family. I was told if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all so I will leave it at that. I came home with bad allergies, my asthma acted up and I got a migraine.

When we got home the Easter Bunny came over early and brought over some peppermint tea for me. She must have know that I would have a headache when I got home. The tea was heavenly.

Later that night the Easter Bunny made its to visit. She assembled a picnic table for the kids, laid out the other goodies and a trail of chocolate eggs. I noticed that she was too tired to pick up all the toys. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that it was after midnight because Muffin didn't go to sleep until then because she had 2 naps that day in the car.



Easter Sunday Tutu was the first one up at 7:30, followed by Monkey at 8:30 she couldn't wait until Muffin woke up so at 9:00 she woke her up so they could see what the Easter Bunny brought them.





Tutu got into the chocolate eggs right away, foil and all. He protested when I took it away to unwrap it for him. They really enjoyed the picnic table. The girls got Olivia figurines and Tutu got Hot Wheels. The started to play with them right away as they ate chocolate.





After that my dad came over and we had our Easter Brunch, I made the glazed ham for brunch since my dad had to work that night and wouldn't be joining us for dinner. The kids not surprisingly didn't eat as they filled up on chocolate. Gotta love the holidays.


Once Brunch was finished we cleaned up and got everyone dressed.I took some pictures of the kids in the cute Easter t-shirts my FIL had sent up for the kids. It's hard to get a decent picture of all 3 kids at once. These are the best of the bunch.





Then Rock took the kids for a walk so I could hide the eggs for the BIG Easter Egg Hunt.



Here are the eggs all hidden. The yard looks so pretty with them scattered around. The kids had 91 eggs and such to find.






The kids had so much fun finding eggs that later on in the afternoon they were hiding them and finding them for fun. Tutu was content to have his one and and carry it around and shake it.







Later on in the afternoon we spent some time playing in the yard and then I decided to create with the kids. I laid a plastic table cloth over top the dining room table. The girls did some soap carvings, while Tutu played with his cars. The they did some painting. I taught Monkey how to scrape colour on with an old credit card. Muffin decided she was going to finger paint and I got a background done on a canvas. They had so much fun creating with me, we have to do that more often. It's been so long since we did that together.







We then cleaned up for dinner. We had a 10lb prime rib roast, with roasted fingerling potatoes, green beans mozzarella, glazed carrots, gravy, and Yorkshire pudding. We decided to go against warming up the ham and pierogies as we figured we had enough food for all of us. It was a super yummy dinner, Rock did a great job as usual. We had a Easter sweet bread for dessert.

It was a long, long weekend. It was action packed but I enjoyed being with my family. I'm glad we broke out of our rut and started to do more fun things together. Thank God spring has come.