Pearl has been BEGGING me to pack her a lunch for oh, at least two years.
Which shouldn't be a big deal because I pack two lunches (almost) every night for Jeff and I anyway. But the thought of making one more sandwich makes me cringe. Even if the thought of her eating sodium-laden, disgusting Spaghetti-Os makes me want to vomit. I just found excuse after excuse... I forgot (that's true most of the time), you won't eat what Mom and Dad eat (also true), you weren't very nice to me (again, true), you have to keep it in the fridge at school (no one wants food poisoning), or let's just face it, because I'm a mean mom.
But the other day it dawned on me that maybe, just maybe making Pearl a lunch would help us get along better. Remember this post?
Jeff says me making him a lunch is how he knows I love him. Maybe that's the same for Pearl. It was worth a try at least.
So she got a plain ham sandwich (no cheese, no butter, nothing), fruit snack, applesauce, and juice box. When I told her to get her lunch box, she was so surprised she didn't know what to say. After a few minutes it clicked that this was finally the day she got to take a lunch to school and squealed with delight. I felt great.
But then Jeff one-upped me. He slipped a note in Pearl's lunch box before leaving for work. 
I wish someone would leave me a love note. Or made my lunch.
If anyone with a few prayers to spare could send them my way ASAP, I'd appreciate it.
Don't worry, nothing is wrong. In fact if we can get all of these schedules coordinated this weekend something so AMAZING is going to happen! I am so excited and nervous about it and things aren't quite working out yet with the planning (to no one's fault) so that's why we could use a few extra prayers and blessings! I can't wait to share more of the good news but am holding my breath until things fall into place.
Satan must know this is going to be wonderful and such a gift to so many that he's putting up a bit of a fight over it. Or at least letting us think that.... so please pray for not just me but everyone I'm working with on this project to have guidance on what to do, that everyone's health, strength, and energy are good, and that we can get the timing figured out.
Jeff told me he wanted to be in charge of the egg hunt this year.
By all means, be my guest!!!
I think deep down, he secretly wants to recreate my Grandma Jewkes' over-the-top ridiculousness of an egg hunt he's heard so much about. I think he might have participated in one of the hunts before we were married but he missed out on a small fortune by not being born into the family in the first place. So this year, he told me he was doing money eggs. $50 of gold coins to be exact... plus some spare change he found in pennies.
We planned it out that every adult got to find and keep one camouflage egg. Each camo egg had $3 in one-dollar coins. The only rule was you had to pay $5 to get in the egg hunt. Everything else was a free-for-all. No age limits.We figured if people took this serious, everyone would come out even or ahead of the $5 entrance fee.
I promise it wasn't rigged, but when we tallied up all the candy and coins, my little family walked away with $28 plus some pennies.
Let the egg hunting begin!
Always stylin' EZ had to have a little help finding her camo egg.
My sickly brother Jesse had pneumonia. So Jeff set up a special quarantined egg hunt just for him... with empty eggs! It was hilarious! And I did make up all the baking sprees without him (remember the pie and snickerdoodles) by baking him his own batch of snickerdoodles to take home.
Hard to believe, but this entire bin was full of eggs before the hunt.
The kids got to turn their eggs in for a basket of goodies. My mom did this last year and it worked wonders because they all get the same stuff so no one fights over anything.
The tech geeks. I love my brothers, but I swear if Jesse wins another Ipad or Iphone or whatever the latest gizmo is, we're going to disown him!
The ever embarrassing family photos. With the exception of my gorgeous sister. I hate her (Mom, I am totally kidding... but does she have to come looking like a model when I'm sweating and have my hair pulled back from cooking all day?).
Happy Easter!
I know it's a week late for Easter celebrations, but I haven't been in much of a blogging mood lately.
Weird.
At any rate, Jeff and I hosted our family's traditional egg hunt and Easter dinner last Saturday. We really enjoy having everyone over... well I do at least. Jeff is ever so reminded of the crazy family he fell in love with when he married me and the fact that we depend on Mother Nature to cooperate by sending us sunshine and warmth because our house is WAY too small to contain everyone for a party.
This year, Jeff requested a "traditional" Easter feast rather than my personal preference for a brunch theme. Here's Cole helping with the olives. He ate all but six olives from the entire can!
The main course... ham, 
funeral potatoes (Emily gave me a run for my money with her hand-shredded potatoes ala funeral),
oven roasted asparagus (so easy and so delicious), 
macaroni salad, rolls, 
and a green salad. I know the salad picture is blurry but doesn't it look beautiful?!
And apparently the "traditional" dinner menu must include deviled eggs. Since I have yet to return my childhood Easter tradition of dying hundreds of eggs until someone successfully dyes one black, I didn't have any eggs on hand to make deviled eggs myself. Plus, I'm not such a "they just slip right down" kind of fan myself so I opted to let my fabulous in-laws bring them (and the rolls and the macaroni salad... hey they are good cooks... don't judge me!)
These beauties got sliced, diced, and "masturbated" as Jeff calls it (sick, sick humor around our house folks... I thought my Dad was going to kill over from laughing or choke on whatever he was eating when I told everyone Jeff asked me if I let the strawberries "masturbate" with each other) into a delicious Sour Cream Pound Cake with Strawberry Lime Sauce and Cream. Yum.
The kid table... they were excited to eat at some point.
The semi-kid-semi-adult-some-still-immature table. He he.
The adult table.
I don't know why I'm always worried about not having enough food for everyone... I'm still eating that green salad a week later!
So she got a plain ham sandwich (no cheese, no butter, nothing), fruit snack, applesauce, and juice box. When I told her to get her lunch box, she was so surprised she didn't know what to say. After a few minutes it clicked that this was finally the day she got to take a lunch to school and squealed with delight. I felt great.
But then Jeff one-upped me. He slipped a note in Pearl's lunch box before leaving for work. 
I wish someone would leave me a love note. Or made my lunch.
