The Lee Family: Happy Easter 2017

I woke up early to get started on the Easter meal, which is always one of my favorites. I make scalloped potatoes in the crockpot that turn out perfectly and are honestly better than dessert, to me. I have to slice the potatoes, parsnips, onions and make everything for the sauce. The parsnips are the secret to the dish, I think. As I arrived in the kitchen to make my coffee I noticed that the Easter Bunny had made his way to our house. The girls had their baskets full of goodies! The girls seem to always get a few of the same Easter staples, including Peeps, jelly beans, a chocolate Easter Bunny, and a swimsuit. The baskets also included the girls' very favorite Easter sweets which are Sees chocolate eggs that have little white chocolate chicks inside. They love those chocolate eggs and were heartbroken when they weren't in their baskets last year. This year the girls had cute bandaids, a small bird house with paints and an gem excavation kit. It looked like great Easter baskets.

As I put together the scalloped potatoes, Olivia came out of her room, still pretty groggy. When she saw the Easter baskets on the table, she suddenly remembered that it was Easter and woke up a little more. She headed straight for her basket and started looking through all the goodies, slowly taking everything out and figuring out what everything was. She noticed that Sofia had a basket and Papa had a large chocolate Easter Bunny but my place was empty. She asked me if the Easter Bunny brought me anything, which I found to be so thoughtful and sweet! I told her he'd brought me a chocolate Easter Bunny too but I'd taken it to my bedroom already to put it in a safe place. I couldn't believe she noticed.

I finished preparing for our lunch meal and Sofia was soon downstairs going through her Easter basket. She loved her new swimsuit and all of the fun stuff she got and loved going through everything. She was especially excited by the See's chocolate eggs in her basket, which really are her very favorite. It's always so fun to watch the girls go through their goodies and see how exciting it is for them.

Soon we were ready to head to Meeting and took a few family pictures before we headed out. Sofia, who is outgrowing all of her clothes faster than possible, wore a new pink dress that I found at Target that looks really cute on her and that she loves to wear. Olivia wanted to wear the dress my Mom made for Sofia, which is my absolute favorite dress of them all. I was afraid it wouldn't fit in the sleeves, but she put it on and it fit her perfectly! So excited she can still wear it and it is so adorable on her.

Meeting went well and we socialized for a bit before heading home for our meal. We've had two visitors in our meeting the past few weeks and asked them to join us for our Easter lunch. We also asked Ken and Lorena and Judy. We hoped to include Kyle and Annie, but they were up visiting their daughter at college. So it ended up being a good group with Phil, Eric, Lorena, Ken, Judy, and us. Once we made it home, I finished up on the remainder of the meal. We basically have the same thing every year, which is such a fun tradition but also easy to remember what to do to get ready. We had honey baked ham, those yummy scalloped potatoes I woke up early to make, salad and homemade rolls. We also made our own cake, which was a pineapple coconut cake that was in one of the Southlake magazine and looked amazing. It was all delicious! Lorena and Ken brought a box of chocolates, and two great Easter baskets for the girls! Of course the girls tore into their baskets and loved the cool erasable gel pens and coloring books. It was very sweet of them and we've been so lucky to have Ken and Lorena in our Meeting. Unfortunately, they were planning on moving to rural Washington state.

While we got everything ready to eat, Sofia and Olivia headed over to Antonio's house for an Easter egg hunt. I really wish we had a group of kids to host an Easter egg hunt, but since it's just the two girls we were more than happy to accept an invite over to Antonio's house to join he and Luca for a hunt. We also had about 40 eggs that we planned to put out in our backyard after our meal and our company had gone home. The girls were super excited to start their hunt with Antonio and Luca. As soon as Stacy let them go, they ran off and got busy hunting. They not only had a great time, but they collected a ton of eggs! I took a picture of the four kids after all the eggs were found and then headed back to our house to finish up our meal while the girls stayed behind to go through their things. Stacy had stuffed the eggs with toys, candy and money and offered to pay for eggs of candy that anyone wanted to turn in. Since Sofia is busy trying to raise money to visit the Frontiers of Flight Museum's Gala so she can see and possibly meet the astronauts Jim Lovell and Fred Haise, she turned all of her candy in for money.

Once they were back at the house, we gave our thanks for the meal and enjoyed our Easter lunch together. It was such a fun meal to sit around, eat, talk and just spend the afternoon. The food was great and we all ended up so stuffed. My Aunt and Uncle had sent us a big box of Sees candy that included a box of assorted chocolates, a chocolate Easter bunny, a bag of jelly beans and two walnut and fudge eggs that are so rich and yummy! It was all so delicious and we took our time enjoying it. We did pass around the box of assorted chocolates as well as the box that Ken and Lorena brought. It was the perfect ending to a great afternoon.

After saying goodbye to everyone and thanking them for coming, we told the girls to stay inside while CK and I hid the Easter eggs we had in the backyard. They were all stuffed with candy, toys and a few with money. Once we were done, the girls headed out and started their hunt. They found all of them (hopefully) and were so excited to go through all the eggs. They sat on the lounge chairs together and went through their eggs, trading candy and toys with each other. It was so cute. I'd packed the eggs with a set of little toys and after they found all of them they had so much fun playing together by the pool. I love how much they enjoy playing together and get along.

Sofia's Easter basket