He's not very good at cooking

The traditional Father's Day ugly tie trade-in for a box of free Krispie Kreme doughnuts.

Dad's favorite!

And the traditional Primary class creations to help the kids tell Dad what they most admire about him. {My personal favorite, Pearl's answer to what he always says, "Oh snap!" Ha! So true! He's also got the four wheeling fun down too.)

And what he needs to work on.

In Jeff's case, cooking.

The kids have no idea the irony behind them both saying he isn't very good at cooking. Because truth be told, of the two of us, Jeff is the better cook. For the first five years of our marriage, I probably cooked three different meals. And they all sucked. But things changed when the kids came along and now I've got them convinced I'm the better cook!

Ha! Who knew Father's Day would turn out to be the best Mother's Day present I've ever had!

Now this is my real family!

A new Easter tradition

Jeff said he wanted to roll Easter eggs down Old Main Hill this year. 

I thought he was crazy. Who does that? Apparently all of Cache Valley by the look of all the egg carnage left on the ground. Jeff was the only one who had experienced the thrill of rocketing a bunch of eggs down the hill... childhood delinquent!

 

Because we had our Easter dinner, egg hunt, and egg dying fun with my side of the family a week after Easter, there wasn't a single soul on Old Main Hill. We had the whole place to ourselves. Who knew throwing hard boiled eggs down a giant hill could be so entertaining? The kids had an absolute blast. Especially as they tried to hit me, as I had secured my spot about half-way down to take pictures. Jeff, Jesse, and Ruby just about got me too.

We were able to gather up a lot of the eggs that hadn't cracked on the wet grass and throw them a second time. Or third time.

Did I mention I got a new coat today too? "Hey, Jesse! Look at my new coat!" It's a sibling joke. I swear every time Jesse got a new coat or new shoes or new anything, the first thing he did was repeat about 50 times, "Hey Jenny! Look at my new coat!" So now I do that to him. 

I promise ladies, my little brother is much more less weird than this picture shows. Although he does have a slight obsession with the movie Frozen and Queen Elsa....

Fern boy couldn't have been happier with a family activity. Getting to purposely throw stuff and make a giant, stinky mess? Right by the Blue "A"? A boy's dream!

Ruby has quite the arm and smacked this tree way, way down the hill with an egg. 

I think we've found a new family tradition!

Easter egg hunt

I am bound and determined to keep up the Easter egg hunt from my childhood for my own children. Luckily for me, my parents bought a bigger house a couple years ago which accommodates my party planning. And while the ridiculousness of Easter egg hunt spoils may never compare to my Grandma Jewkes', I think everyone has fun. {Although I did buy all of the pipsqueaks these super cute, super soft Easter stuffed animals.}

Even Kurtis. Who yes, still has to find his own set of camo eggs. He was less than amused with some of the hiding spots for his eight eggs.

Ready, set, go!!!

Anberlin loved throwing the "balls" everywhere. Even with the lure of chocolate from her Aunt Jenny, she still snubbed me.

We invited Jeff's parents and brother to come over for dinner and the egg hunt. We do try and have the Easter celebration at our house, but if the weather isn't pristine, it's a little squished with everyone in our 1,100 square foot "mansion." My Grandpa and Grandma Allen also came over. I think they had fun watching the great-grandkids running around collecting eggs.

The loot. I can't remember how many eggs we hid, but it was a lot. Especially when all of them were in the basement somewhere! And my Dad couldn't help but up the ante and hide some money in with the candy. He has a lot of his Mom in him.

Leave it to me to spoil the kids' dinner with Oreos and a big piece of carrot cake! And they aren't even my own kids!

After dinner and egg hunting, we dyed eggs. You'll notice the Mtn. Dew. Yeah. Dying eggs with little kids is a bit stressful for me. A few swigs though and I was happy to let them spill dye all over everything... sort of... not really.

Jeff tries every year to make a black egg. It's a tradition. Growing up my Grandpa Jewkes always tried to make a black egg and it sort of stuck after all these years. He came pretty close... even if he did cheat and try to color it with a Sharpie first. 

I'm glad my mom doesn't mind a huge mess at her house. Although we did spare her from cleaning up smashed eggs.... we saved that for Old Main Hill.

Happy Easter Sunday!

Happy Easter Sunday!

The Easter bunny made a stop at our house before he hopped off to church.

And we had a failed attempt at some quick pictures after church to document the occasion. I really need a new camera with a better phone. 

How to catch a leprechaun

Pearl was determined to trap those tricky leprechauns this year. She even wrote about her plans at school.

{Her school assignment reads: "How to trap a leperchaun. I will use a moise trap with a pany. I will put the rain bow on the top of the trap. I will use pot of gold with the pany. Pearl"}

I'm always impressed with Pearl's creative abilities. She built a pretty good leprechaun trap. She even enlisted the help of one of our lizard friends who hides in the house. And we almost caught one this year!

But it's probably a good thing they escaped otherwise we might not have woke up to a house full of leprechaun clues. The kids each got some fake money, a book, green shirt to avoid getting pinched, and a small toy. 

Maybe next year we'll finally catch those leprechauns.