.: Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone!

Despite Erick having to work a double on Easter (this now makes a double
on both Easter AND Christmas! How unfair is that?) we managed to have a
very nice holiday by stretching out our Easter celebration over 3 days.

On Saturday, once Erick was home from work, we had an Easter dinner just
the three of us. I made a glazed ham, stir-fried green beans in peanut
sauce, country scalloped potatoes and a chocolate hazelnut pie with
coconut. While I was cooking and Erick and McKenna were playing, the
Easter Bunny must've snuck in because he left McKenna all sorts of
goodies! He left her a beach bag filled with sand toys, a stroller for
her baby doll, a little kit with baby doll diapers and bibs, a big
chocolate Dora egg, and lots of plastic eggs filled with fruit puffs,
graham cracker sticks, goldfish crackers and Hershey kisses. By far, her
favorite is the baby doll stroller. She spends a good deal of her day
pushing baby around and pretending to take baby to the park to see the
ducks. She also took it to the REAL park on Easter Sunday as well as to
Gramma & Pop-Pop's on Monday. She's quite the little mommy, refusing to
ever leave baby at home without a sitter. LOL!

After dinner, we dyed some eggs which was less of a mess than I thought
it would be. True, she did still take the eggs and just throw them in
the dye...causing several to crack and her hands to be dyed green. And
true, she was not pleased when we ran out of eggs and she did take
already-dyed eggs and tried to re-dye them in other colors. But
nonetheless, we escaped with minimal mess and a wonderful memory.

On Sunday, my family had a very relaxing Easter lunch at the park. I
made chicken tortellini salad, lemon cookies and garden cupcakes. We had
a great meal of brats, baked beans, potato salad, lots of fresh fruit
and a whole array of other things that escape my mind at the moment.
McKenna had a good time pushing her baby around in the stroller and even
Luke pushed baby around for awhile (he's gonna be such a good big
brother!) They had an egg hunt and McKenna did very well. As soon as she
realized that the eggs had treats in them, she was very eager to pick up
as many as she could! It was so precious to see her walking around in
her pretty dress, carrying the basket that my Grandpa had made for me
when I was a little girl, and trying to lug it around filled with eggs
that kept spilling out the sides. And then she and Luke got a TON of
presents too! She got a HUGE Easter basket filled with toys, bubbles,
bath stuff and candy from Gramps and Cheryl, she got a pretty little
outfit from our friend Sherri, a goody bag filled with yummy treats from
our friends Nichoel and Ashlea, and a new dress and a toy box from
Grandma Beth & Tony (they actually made it themselves so it would match
her room!) Spoiled grandbabies? I'd say so!

When we got home on Easter evening, we gave Gramma and Pop-Pop a call to
wish them a happy Easter and made plans to have dinner with them on
Monday. Erick was off that night so we all got to have some nice time
together as a family. Great Grandma was able to join us, which was nice.
McKenna doesn't see her often enough but warmed up to her very quickly
and was soon performing all her best songs and dances and animal sounds
to entertain her. Mom, as usual, made about a dozen delicious main
courses! We had scallops, shrimp, trout, salmon, chicken, Cajun
potatoes, I can't even remember it all! I just know that my plate was
filled and little baby Bieger and I ate WELL! McKenna ate Gramma's bacon
& green beans dish as well as some cantaloupe and berries. She wanted
nothing else. The kid could live off of green beans and cantaloupe if
we'd let her!!

All-in-all, it was a wonderful holiday and I was so glad that we got an
opportunity to be with so much family. I hope that your Easter was
filled with just as much warmth and blessings as ours was.

Here are some pics for you to enjoy!

"Thank you Easter Bunny!"

"Mmm, Hershey Kisses are good even with the foil on!"

Taking baby to "the park" to feed the ducks.

She tells the ducks "Ducky, food!" She actually asked me for bread to feed to them but I wasn't about to have that all over my carpet so she settled for "puffs".

Daddy teaching McKenna how to dye eggs. Daddy says "Ignore my hat hair."

Our finished product!

My garden cupcakes (its hard to tell but the candy rings are trimmed into flower petals. Inside the flowers are gum drops. The grass is dyed coconut):

Little Miss Beautiful:

Mommy came along to carry the eggs that were overflowing from her basket:

Enjoying one of many pieces of candy she raked in:

And here are a few non-Easter ones that I loved:

You can tell she was REALLY wanting a baby stroller. She kept putting her baby dolls on this toy and would push them around. What an imagination!