Easter 2018

Easter ... it's that time of year when other families hard boil eggs and color them. Occasionally that happens in the Blackham home, but EVERY Easter, we separate the egg whites, beat them into a meringue and add sugar, salt and cream of tarter to make "nests" ... these crumbly, flaky, melt in your mouth bites are OUR tradition. Every since elementary school for me. 2018 was the year of the nests. I made so many batches, and ate more than my fair share.

Easter morning was underwhelming again. In years past, there were times that Easter almost rivaled Christmas with the number of goodies and gifts brought by "the bunny" instead of Santa.  Last year, this year? Not so much. Buckets weren't even laid out and filled until the morning this year. Not much in them, but the kids didn't complain. They even posed for pictures, although I didn't get the boys all together. 

In the afternoon, we headed over to Maga's house. It conference Sunday, and we couldn't have asked for better weather. Warm and sunny. Perfect!

 I'd made roll dough, turning it into orange rolls and traditional dinner rolls (forgot to grab a picture of them). I also made Brazillian cheese rolls, as they are easy and a family favorite on both sides. 

We had quite the smorgasbord laid out. Grayson had smoked brisket and made mashed potatoes. Maga had her mac&cheese and ham, Clayton prepped mussels. 

Then there was the "peeps" cake ...

Keaton had to work and was missed (Sam's first words as we entered were "where's Keaton?") but we did get both the big boys and their girlfriends. Should have grabbed a big group photo!

Landon joked he was going to hit the stores the day after Easter to stock up on clearance candy. He didn't ... but I did. I mean, I was going to the store anyway, not making a special trip just for that! I must admit, most of the candy this year, was picked up last year. My Monday stop at Smiths I grabbed a few bags of the Reeses eggs (favorites for me and the three older boys) and some Robin Eggs (I love them), but that's pretty much all they had there. A few days later, at Walmart, I was surprised there was still quite a stock of clearance candy. More Reeses eggs (as they were less $$ than Smiths had been), some odds and ends (jelly beans, smarties, KitKat and Twix, Cadbury Eggs, PB M&Ms Eggs ... only found one package of those or I would have grabbed more). I had grabbed a couple of the FavorREDS jelly beans as I saw them mixed in with the others, as the reds ARE our favorites (and then I still pick out the dark cherry reds) ... but then I found a bin full of just that flavor. I grabbed quite a few.

What are YOUR favorite Easter eats and treats?