Happy Easter!

My favorite picture of the week.  I just love this little guy!

 Easter is such a great holiday, a time for getting together, a time to decorate and hunt for eggs, and a time to reflect on the Savior.  Unfortunately, in the past Jake and I haven't taken full advantage of celebrating it.  This year we changed that.  We've been able to do some fun things for Easter this year.

We began the week before Easter by making Easter cookies and decorating them with some good friends.  Pace especially loves having them visit, because he loves having boys to play with.  Before we were ready to start decorating the cookies all the kiddos got together to do some karaoke (I know you've heard many versions of this song, but I think this one is one of the best, no?)

After the entertainment it was time to get down to the real business...decorating some cookies.  I had all my tools from when I learned how to decorate cakes, so we were able to get pretty fancy.

Ryan

Joseph

Justin

And their beautiful mom, Tracy

Unfortunately Pace got sick letter that week, so he was down for a couple days and we weren't able to go on our Easter camping trip.  But we improvised and did camping at home.  This basically involved a fire in our backyard, with a camping dinner to go along, pancake breakfast, and an epic hike in between Pace's recovery naps.  We found the most amazing hike (which somehow we had missed until now) right here on post.  It took us to the top of some cliffs (cliffs of insanity as we like to call them)  and we could see for miles.  It was a little bit of a climb, but well worth it.  The hike is at the south end of Stone Mill Spring Parking lot for anyone in the area who wants to try it out (the trail has no sigh, but is marked throughout).  It ends at the spring, which is just beautiful.  Unfortunately I forgot the camera for all of this.

Also, because we were home we were able to do some more traditional Easter activities on Saturday.  We dyed Easter eggs (Jake was sweet and surprised me with all the supplies for this).  Although we are not artists, and our supplies were limited, we think we achieved pretty good results.  We also had a little Easter egg hunt for Pace.  Although we didn't hide them we just left them out for him to find.  We figure he would lose interest if we made it hard at all.  It was adorable to watch him.

 

Enjoying the Puffs!

On Sunday I tried my hand at a few new recipes: homemade pork and beans with ham in a crock pot, deviled eggs, and lemon meringue cupcakes.  Let just say, we were stuffed and I felt pretty accomplished.  I even squeezed and zested lemons for the cupcakes.

The blue tint is from the dye (somehow it leaks through the shell?)

Mmmm!  I will be making these again!

On Monday we found this gem of a movie, which really helped us focus on the real meaning of Easter.

Other than that I just wanted to share a few pictures of Pace, because he is adorable, and I can't help it.

Pace ready to bbq

Bubbly Bath!

Hiding in Daddy's closet

Mad Scientist hair

 

Check out that hair wing!

And he loves Penny!

Look he is standing on his own with only a curtain string in his hands!