Easter Fun!

Usually holidays mean 1) an unexplained compulsion to buy candy and presents that have little or nothing to do with the actual holiday, 2) any children will automatically behave very badly because of said candy, much excitement, and no nap. Even though this is the norm, we broke from it and had a really nice Easter. I bought minimal candy (which I got on sale with a coupon), we went to one little Easter Egg Hunt (pictures below), and we had a nice family dinner with the Claytons.
We'll be so sad when Eric and Renee move out. Probably at the end of the summer. It's been great having them here.
Our fun neighbor Sue had a little Easter Egg Hunt in her yard.
Sam wasn't terribly interested in finding eggs (he started out with three that I put in), mostly because of...
the slide. It was so fun. It was really hard to get him off when it was time to go home.

We finally got to meet baby Ksenia! She was very tired, but we caught her with her eyes open. I miss having a newborn. Correction...I miss having Will as a newborn. He's been such a joy to our family. If the next one is like him, then I want one now! (For the record, Sam was also a very good baby, and a textbook perfect sleeper)

Even eating a tortilla, he's just the cutest baby!
Remember Puss in Boots from Shrek? Will has the big, shiny, innocent eyes.

I was on my food blog today getting a recipe for dinner, and Sam saw the homemade oreo cookies. He asked if we could make them, so that was our activity this afternoon during Will's nap. They're so evil and addictive. There are only two left. Sam grabbed the dough hook as I was getting the mixer out, and for the next hour and a half Mr. Pirate was my new friend. His first question to me, "Is this Captain Hook's hook?" He held the hook and used it instead of his hand to open drawers and such. His pirate voice was hilarious, and when I would do a pirate voice too, he would tell me, "No, you're the pirate's mom, you don't talk like that!"

Eric's friend Chris came over to study, so he had dinner with us like he usually does when he comes. He's always very grateful for the meal, helps clean up, and even schmoozes a bit too. One time he told Mike he was a lucky man. Today he told me he hopes his (future) wife is like me. Ha! Who doesn't like to be schmoozed? He's welcome for dinner any time!

Mike is leaving in the morning for a Moab mountain biking trip with our new neighbor Doug. Sounds like it's going to be an intense trip, so I'm sure he'll have a great time. We have lots of great neighbors, but Doug and his wife are our same ages, so it's fun to have cool neighbors that are in the same place in life.

We had our monthly girls night out a couple of days ago, and we went to a "fine dining" restaurant. Even knowing it would be crazy amounts of money, I still had sticker shock looking at the menu. Entrees started (started!) at $30, and went up to about $40. I ended up ordering a salad and appetizer as my meal, and it still took 20 bucks to get out of there. I just can't enjoy a meal knowing I could buy a week's worth of groceries for the same price. I had a $25 discount that came in the mail, but we divided it so I only got $3.50 off my bill. It was fun though, and I got to have a few bites of Katie's Creme Brulee. Yum. Wish that were a health food.