Easter Weekend

We had quite the busy holiday weekend here!

Saturday morning we were up and ready to go....first thing on the agenda? Dying eggs of course!

Aren't they pretty?

Then the girls finally decided to eat breakfast...and yes, Cassandra was completely naked for whatever reason! (no, this does NOT happen on a regular basis!)

After breakfast, I showered then took Cassandra grocery shopping with me. We got home and they had lunch. Then it was off to our neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt! Lots of people-I think the last count I saw was about 50 kids and 40 adults? Somewhere around there!  The girls came armed and ready!

They let the under 3 year olds get a head start, so I took off with Cassandra and snapped this pic of the older kids waiting to go:

Every kid got to find 10 eggs (which were all filled with prizes) and if they found a golden egg, they got a larger prize! Avery was lucky enough to find one this year so she was psyched! Then we all returned back to the garage for lots of goodies! My kids of course found the watermelon and forgot just how tasty it is!

After the egg hunt, my Dad and Colleen came for a visit so we hung out with them and went out for dinner. Then I had to come home, get the girls to bed and make dessert for Easter. Yep, very busy day!

Avery was up around 7:40 on Easter and Cassandra was the sleepy head that didn't wake up until 8:45 (making up for her missed nap Saturday). Luckily we were able to keep Avery upstairs and entertained until her sister woke up. Then we all went downstairs and looked for what the Easter bunny brought....lots of eggs and baskets!

Cassandra's (L) and Avery's (R) baskets

Then it was shower time and off to my in-laws' for brunch!

Happy Easter!

We had a very good meal which was then followed by another egg hunt! It was beautiful outside-perfect day to do an egg hunt!

Owen, Bianca, Avery, Cassandra

The kids looking for their eggs....

And going through their loot!

After the egg hunt, we headed home around 2:30 so Cassandra could nap. Avery stayed at my in-laws' all day and slept over. Since it was so nice out, Gabe and I got some much needed work done outside-it was so nice to be out in the warm sunshine!  When the little one woke up, we played outside some more-she just loves it out there! Gabe had to go back to his parents for a bit so Cassandra and I just hung out and played the rest of the day.

Love this girl!

It was a really busy, fun weekend! We all had a really good time!

Happy Easter!!

35

Yesterday I turned 35. 

It's kind of hard to comprehend that I'm in my mid-thirties. Most days I don't feel old, and I don't think I look old. In fact, just a week ago I had a patient say he thought I was 24!

But then there are times I'm amazed at how time passes by. Like that I graduated high school 17 years ago! Or that Y2K was 14 years ago. Or that I met Gabe almost 11 years ago. That sort of stuff blows my mind. Where did those years go?!  I sometimes feel like it was yesterday that I was cheerleading and getting ready to go to college. I remember when I moved out here and it amazes me that it was 10 years ago this summer. I've been in Rochester almost a third of my life-that is hard to believe.

Anyways.....my 35th birthday was very nice.

It started with both kids up super early (for them). Lucky me got  to stay in bed while Gabe and Avery made me breakfast. I got to watch some of my TV shows and chill with the little peanut.

Then my breakfast arrived-a fried egg sandwich and some blueberries (which Cassandra helped me eat).

It was a pretty nice day out so the kids were in and out all morning. I told Gabe I wanted him and Avery to make my cake for me. So I was giving him pointers through the morning.  Avery had a make up gymnastics class at 12:30 so I dropped her off. Came home and put Cassie down for her nap. Gabe went to pick up Avery and get his haircut so I had some alone, quiet time. I took advantage and sat my butt out on the porch and read a magazine-glorious!  Then my Mom came around 3:30 or so. When Gabe got home, him and Avery finished up the cake....

and the kids got their Easter gifts from my Mom.

We went out for an early dinner, came home and I opened my presents. Then we had cake:

Gabe had to pick up his parents from the airport and we were going to go to a movie when he got back....but everything was sold out at the theater we wanted to go to! So...we just stayed in and watched a movie here once the girls were asleep.

It was a wonderful day filled with wonderful people-my husband, my kids, and my Mom-perfection!

Avery the Photographer

Avery has recently taken an interest in my camera and how it works. She has been asking quite frequently if she can take some pictures.

Here are a few of the ones she's taken in the past few days....

Daddy and Jerri

Daddy

Jerri

Mommy, Cassie, Daddy

Jerri in her bed

Mommy, Daddy, Cassie

Not bad huh?!

Potato Corn Chowder

I actually made this soup a few weeks ago, but am finally just getting around to posting it!

I'll confess, soups scare me. The reason? They all have a million ingredients, most of which I don't have in my house. So when I see a list of 20 items and only have 5 of them, I'm not going to spend my money buying the rest. Nor do I really care to take all of the time to chop/dice those 20 said items. I love homemade soup, but most of the time I stay away from those recipes!

I've had this recipe forever. I have no idea where I got it from (I hand wrote it on a small piece of paper) and it's been sitting in my recipe book for years. I kid you not!

But I decided to make it, and it's SO, SO good!

Potato Corn Chowder
 2.5-3lbs yukon gold potatoes
2 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 onion chopped
1/2 lb frozen corn, slightly thawed
1 sweet red pepper, diced
3 cups milk
4 strips bacon-cooked and crumbled
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/8 tsp cayenne

1. Peel and chop potatoes. Put in a saucepan with water and boil about 15min or until fork tender. Drain and mash.
2. Spray saucepan with non-stick spray. Add celery, onion, corn and red pepper. Saute for 5mins.
3. Stir in bacon and milk. Add potatoes and mix. Add seasonings. Cover and simmer for 10min (Do NOT boil!)

Notes: I couldn't find Yukon Golds at my store so I used Russett potatoes instead-still tasted great! For the potato mashing, I used my mixer and mashed them slightly then beat them a little bit-sort of like making mashed potatoes. I'm sure you could leave it chunkier if desired.

This recipe was really good-I'll be making it again for sure! Sorry that I don't have a photo-I forgot to take one!

Baptism and Big 6-0

We went to Buffalo yesterday for a few celebrations!

First, my good friend Renee's daughter had her baptism party.

She's just the cutest thing! She wasn't too thrilled having people hold her, but somehow I think I had her for a good half hour or so. If she saw a man, she cried. If she saw kids, she smiled! I don't think she loved the idea of me holding her, but she went along with it for a bit!

She also tried out her exersaucer type thing!

We had a nice lunch and of course some yummy cake to go along with it.

After the party, we went to my Mom's to celebrate both my Mom's and Aunt's birthdays (they are a day after each other). My Mom is 60 this year so it was a "big" birthday for her! On the way, we picked up our first ever doughnut cake from our fave Buffalo doughnut shop.

We just hung out and the kids played. Then we had a light dinner and the kids wanted some popsicles.

Then we sang "Happy Birthday" to the birthday girls....

My Aunt and Mom

and the doughnut cake was so darn good! Before we hit the road, the girls had some Nama snuggles.

Our drive home was terrible. We got hit with a storm that started as rain and changed over to snow. We left Buffalo at 8pm and didn't get home until 10:45!! Usually it takes us about an hour and 20min or so. I don't think we ever went over 40mph and we didn't drive longer than 5min without seeing either an accident or a car off of the road. It was crazy!  I'm just glad we made it home without an issue-even if it took forever!

Cinderella Ball

Our local city Ballet hosted a Cinderella Ball yesterday. We got a flyer in the mail for it, so I thought it would be something fun for Avery and I to do. It was during Cassandra's nap and after going, I think she was a little too young for it still.

Avery got all dressed up in her Cinderella dress before we went:

We got there and they had Cinderella's carriage to sit in (with one of the fairies):

Also in that room, they had some food set up. A chocolate fountain (Avery won't stop talking about it!), cheese and crackers, cookies, veggie tray. They also had a raffle going on with about 10 prizes and face painting.

Then you made a grand entrance into the studio. Every child received a crown and was announced as "Princess _____" when entering. So cute! In the studio they had some of the dancers trying to get the kids to dance until the performance started. Avery did a lot of watching, but finally was brave enough to join in on the fun!

Then they had us all sit down and they did some numbers from their upcoming performance of Cinderella.

The Fairies

Cinderella and the Prince

Cinderella and the Prince

After the performance, they had hula hooping, more dancing, and coloring with the Fairy Godmother....Avery was all about that since she's really into coloring these days!

more dancing

They also let you meet Cinderella and the Prince. Avery was too nervous to go talk to them, so we opted out and did some more coloring and dancing.

They did another short performance, announced the raffle winners, and then it was time to go. On our way out, Avery finally got up the courage to meet Cinderella:

It was a really cute thing they had for the kids. I think Avery really enjoyed it. The only hard thing was that she's never been to a ballet before so she didn't quite understand why there was no talking/singing going on like in the movies. And Cinderella was wearing white instead of blue like in the movie so she was convinced it wasn't really her!  Other than that, we had a really great time!

Crockpot Pineapple Chicken

This recipe has been floating around on social media lately. I jotted it down to give it a try and on Monday I decided to give it a whirl!

Crockpot Pineapple Chicken
 2lbs chicken, cubed
1 cup pineapple juice
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup soy sauce

1. Put all ingredients into crockpot and cook for 6-8hrs.

Easy right?!

I was "eh" about this recipe. I expected it to be a sweeter, thicker sauce like you see on the photo that pops up on your news feed. Not at all. I cooked mine on low and after about 4hrs, I could tell that the sauce was like water. So, I added some cornstarch to the sauce (maybe 3tbs?) and cranked it up to high for 2hrs to thicken it. That did the trick, but the sauce was not sweet to me at all.  All I could taste was the soy sauce, so I was a little disappointed in that. My chicken was pretty dry too so I think the cooking time is a little too long. I think next time I'll cut the soy sauce in half and keep the rest the same to see how that works out. We had it over brown rice, and I would do that again. It wasn't a total loss, but needs some tweaking for sure! And of course I forgot to get a picture of it!