life: easter snapshots

Over the weekend, Tony and I hosted my family at our house for Easter weekend. Having holidays at our house -- how's that for being a real grownup? The family also came last year for Easter, so Easter in D.C. is becoming a real tradition. My parents came down from Ohio with my Grandma Mary, and my Uncle Mike drove down from Pittsburgh. When Tony and I told friends of ours about the weekend plans, they seemed really shocked that we'd want to spend so much time in such close quarters with our family. But I'm lucky to have a great family that I actually want to spend time with. Close quarters = cozy in situations like that.

In preparation for their visit, Tony and I gave our house a thorough cleaning. I'd say there are five levels of tidiness in our house:

1. Just Tony and me, day-to-day.
2. Guests come over for dinner.
3. Guests spend the night.
4. New York Times comes to photograph your house for the Sunday magazine.
5. Grandma Mary comes to visit.

Actually, Grandma coming to visit was a good excuse to give the whole house a good spring cleaning. I estimate Tony and I could reconstitute approximately 2.5 cats from all of the cat hair that we cleaned up from Victor's hiding places, particularly under the bed.

Tony and my dad spent about a day and a half working in the backyard on the next phase of our backyard makeover project, building a raised garden bed. I still have to take more photos of the finished product, so stay tuned for a separate post on that.

My mom and I collaborated on Easter dinner, which turned out very well. She was in charge of the ham and kielbasa. I made some pierogies earlier in the week and cooked them for dinner. And I whipped up some of my famous scalloped potatoes, green beans, and hard boiled eggs.

Here we all are, about to dig in. Well, except for Tony, who is taking the photo.

My Easter basket from Uncle Mike included these cute little guys, who served as a nice centerpiece on a table crammed full of food.

And then Tony had fun trying to eat the bunnies with an alligator candy dispenser from his Easter basket. 

Moving on to dessert. This is a 3-D bunny cake, an edible work of art by my mom.

She found an antique mold at a thrift store and baked a lemon pound cake in it. She made the frosting textured like bunny fur, gave the little guy pink ears and a nose, put it on a bed of green coconut grass and added some flowers. Oh, and how about those eyes!

And then we devoured that guy. The aftermath:

 And after dinner was the second annual Easter egg hunt in my backyard in which Tony and I hid the eggs and let Mom, Dad, Grandma and Uncle Mike hunt for them.

If you thought watching children hunt for eggs is entertaining, you have to see four grown ass adults push each other out of the way when they've been told one of the eggs contains a Macys gift card.

See? That's my dad pushing his wife out of the way in pursuit of an Easter egg.

Mom had the height advantage over Grandma:

Oh, and one of the eggs contained a certificate for one free hug from Tony. Dad won. I have no idea why he's wearing a particle mask on his head, but it's cute otherwise.

Happy Easter!