Easter Mess...uh, I mean Dress

Ready, set, eat!

Success!

Hot Cross Buns...yummy!  (Thanks Peeps!)

Tiny rocked the FLOTUS's favorite designer
while trying her very first Peep. She got loads of
compliments at church, on her outfit...not her behavior. 

No joke, the couch looked (er, looks) exactly like this.
Think blue ink, instead of red crayon.  I'd take
a picture but it's just too painful.

We spent Easter in Bentonville, and it was a great weekend.  This is the first big holiday we haven't travelled home to see our families, and it was sad and nice all at the same time.  We usually spend most holidays traveling from one side of the family to the next trying to see everyone; brunch with one, dinner with the other.  No rest for the weary.  But, this year brunch was just our little party of three, lovely, but we actually really missed the crazy.

In keeping with tradition, we went to church, and then made a nice breakfast, complete with hot cross buns and hard boiled dyed eggs.  My mom sent us the homemade buns (a yummy taste of home!) and the eggs were dyed by yours truly.

Every year, the women and children (and an occasional man, my grandfather, Poppy, was always game) in my family dye easter eggs using an old family recipe.  For as long as I can remember we have been doing this, and the process is wonderfully messy and the eggs deliciously beautiful.  Without my big wacky family to share this tradition, I tried to get Tiny in on the fun.  She seemed curious at first, but then just stared at me as my hands turned various shades of blue, then purple.  Her technique involved less dye on the eggs and more in her mouth as she tried to eat it by the spoonful.  She ended up orange and the egg victims cracked.

While most of our eggs turned out just as pretty as they do every year, the process didn't have quite the fun factor of dying them with other, well, actual people.  Sorry Tiny, but you did try to eat the dye. Plus, its a lot of work to just do an egg or two, so we did two dozen, which, turns out, is A LOT of eggs for three people.  Egg salad anyone?

We started our own Easter tradition on Sunday, too.  It's a fun game.  Here's how it works:  Tiny grabs a ballpoint pen from mommy's purse and then when mommy is on the phone with out of town family, scribbles as many lines as possible on the white linen couch until mommy or daddy catches her!  Players then each get ten minutes to google as many stain removing solutions they can.  The player with the winning stain treatment wins.  Spoiler ALERT!!! This game has no winners, everyone is a loser.  And, if the visual wasn't a painful enough reminder, the smell of hairspray and finger nail polish remover is literally sickening me with the stench of failure.

The only saving grace is the couch cushions have one flip in them.  Once we choose to flip, it will be our last shot.  So, do we flip now, or flip only when 'good' company comes over?

Here's to creating new family traditions and memories, while still living, loving and missing the old ones.