Monday, April 1, 2013

Bunny Day Weekend Celebrations!

So the fella and I were discussing things this month.  Budgeting for the holidays, and all that fun stuff that isn't all that fun (though I must say I enjoy the shopping!)

During our discussions, we decided something.  We realized we do not celebrate Easter.  We celebrate finding eggs, pigging out, and being lazy afterwards.  We celebrate eating candy, and watching movies while cuddling on the couch.

So from now on, we will celebrate Bunny Day.  I am not sure how this will work for us.  The reason we made this tiny change is because we didn't want to bring insult to a holiday that people are so close to.  How dare we say Happy Easter! when we have no ties to Easter for what it really represents.  However there are those who will probably say "How dare you make jests or celebrate a bunny on our holy day!"  But it is truly meant to be a good thing.  Really.

So I would like to share with you, our first ever Bunny Day Celebration :)

We woke up in the morning with a holiday inspired breakfast...


Orange Sweet Rolls, unrolled and re-rolled to look like bunnies.  Raisins for eyes.  :) 
We also had scrambled eggs, or chicks :) (I can't decide if that is cute or morbid)

After breakfast, our little girl got dressed, and did her first egg hunt.  She did well.  She had trouble finding the eggs (that weren't really hidden) at first, but no trouble putting them into her basket.  She also had no trouble getting into the goodies later.  She lost her mind when she found her basket!



Eating a marshmallow pop.  Sugar highs are okay on special holidays right? 
She did well all day, with not tantrums, or anything :) She took a normal nap too!
(no sugar crash, phew, I am not the worse mom ever!)

Joshua was pretty excited for his basket too.  I think I have said so before, but I get really excited at the holidays... so Joshua gets one too!  He had to search for it and everything.  I filled it with candy, beef jerky, a new book, a nice smelling candle, and a new water bottle to replace his broken one.  :) he seemed to really like it.  

Joshua surprised us this year (surprised, because he isn't into holidays like I am haha) by bringing home our daughter a bag of goodies :) including a new bunny headband, that she has chosen to be her new favorite necklace.  Goofy children.  

So, in our area of Chicago, the park distric had about 5 different egg hunts going on.  We chose to go to the two that worked with our schedule, and were within walking distance.  

The first was really cool.  The eggs were all empty, but they were dumped everywhere in this giant gym!  There were tons of kids toys, little shopping carts, slides, work stations, and even some crafting stations for older kids.  She loved the slide the most, though the first trip down it was a little scary for her I think.  

But she sure was brave with Daddy by her side
<3

After collecting eggs, you could bring them up and get a prize.  She got a rainbow colored bunny :) She cuddled it all the way to the next egg hunt.  But before we left, we had to get some pictures of her with Mr. Hippity Hop.  I know that kids are normally scared of the crazy people inside the costumes... but ours was all about it.  We actually had to hold her back so she didn't ruin other peoples photos (our mini photo bomber, starting already! You will do great things child!!!)


Afterwards, she gave him a high five, and then went on collecting more eggs.



Doesn't she look excited?




This was right before we left, she was getting a little tired.  

So we left this park building, so we could go to one more egg hunt.  I have never heard my daughter so sad to leave a place.  She was having so much fun!  I felt bad going, but we wanted to go to one more before heading home.  I had a ham in the oven! (oh yeah, and we had a guest at home that we probably shouldn't leave alone on the holiday we invited him for haha).

So we get to the next place, and it has just started.  However there are older kids here, and all the eggs are already gone :( I feel like at a public event, they should put a limit on how many eggs each kid can claim (just so they aren't all gone in less than 5 minutes).

She had a ton of fun regardless :) 


Tons of balloons!  Everywhere! 
She would get into the middle of a bunch, then just go crazy swatting them away!
So many giggles, and so many smiles :) 
One of the best parts of the day.


It was tons of fun, and I have to mention that I looked up and saw a guy that looked just like Jaqen H''ghar!  So much so, that I went to my fella, and told him to look over.  I said "I have found the man of many faces!"  Turns out he had already found him, so he just said very excitedly "I know!!!"  Pretty sure Jaqen saw me looking a few times.  It was weird to see the man from Bravos in jeans.

Here are a couple other pictures from the dimly lit, no eggs left, egg hunt (that was still awesome.  balloons? genius!)





Then we went home.  She was ready for her nap, so down she went.  This was great, because it allowed me to finish my cooking.  We didn't eat until about 3, but totally worth the wait.  I am pretty sure it was the best ham I have ever had/made.  

Best Ham:

10 lb spiral cut ham
1 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1.5 tsp mustard powder
1/4 cup honey
1 can of crushed pineapple

Combine dry ingredients, then rub all over ham.  Pour the pineapple over everything, and then basically recover it until the whole thing is well saturated.  Then drizzle the honey on top.  :) It was soooo good! The bottom of the ham was the sweetest, since it was in the juices the whole time, but the top was sweet and salty.  Either way it was delicious!  Even our little girl couldn't get enough.  We cooked it at 325, for 15 minutes per pound.  

We also had croissant rolls, corn bread muffins, cheesy green bean casserole, deviled eggs, mini bread loafs, mashed potatoes, fruit, veggies, homemade spinach dip, and an assortment of other little snacks and desserts to last us for at least the rest of the week.

I tried to do that cute Pinterest Chick Deviled eggs thing, but they did not turn out quite right looking.  They were delicious though :) 

I also did this mushroom recipe from Pinterest.  They came out amazing!  Mmmm balsamic mushrooms.  Who can resist?  At least in our family I mean... 

I wanted to make some spinach dip also, but found many problems when looking for a good recipe :( 
For one, I don't like water chestnuts.  For two, I can't eat onions without feeling kind of sick.  That means those Knorr Vegetable Soup packs are out :( as well as the green onions.  I didn't want to use a big thing of sour cream, that just didn't seem healthy, neither did cream cheese.  With the amount of sugar on the ham, I figured I should cut back where I could. 

This is my Spinach Dip recipe, and the fella couldn't get enough of it!  You can sort of see in the picture below, that I had made the dip into a bunny, but it was eaten up before I could get a good picture of it. 

Spinach Dip:

3 cups loosely packed frozen spinach leaves
1 personal size Choboni plain greek yogurt cup
1/2 C. lite mayo
3 shakes onion powder
3 shakes garlic powder

put spinach into food processor, and pulse.  Then add everything else and process on low until blended to desired consistency.
It took me less than 5 minutes to make, and then I just spooned it into the middle of a hawaiian bread round roll thing.  Too good!  In the future I would probably add some red pepper to it as well.  

Here is our Bunny Day feast!


It was a great day.  

We watched Wreck it Ralph while we ate.  A great movie that you should see if you haven't already.  We really enjoyed all of the little cameos from other games.  

We also read the new books that were in our daughters basket, multiple times.  I highly recommend this one.  It was very cute, and I really enjoyed reading it :) 

That was our first annual Bunny Day Celebration.  It was wonderful.  I wish we could do something like that every weekend, but only if someone else is coming to do the dishes ;) 

We held it on Saturday, instead of Sunday, to further separate it from the religious holiday... and because GoT's season 3 premiere was Sunday night. 

For that we went to Joshua's brothers house, where we ate some delicious spaghetti, in homemade sauce, while watching the thrilling premiere! 

Then we went home, exhausted from the weekend, but so happy.  But mostly exhausted...


I hope everyone else had a wonderful weekend.









2 comments:

amy @ fearless homemaker said...

I love your Bunny Day idea! And yum, you made/ate so much delicious food - I'm craving ham now! Your bunny rolls turned out adorable, too. And your little one is so precious! I'm expecting my first child, also a girl, in less than 2 months so it's exciting to see all the fun momma things I'll be doing soon! I hope my M&M bars wound up turning out good for you, by the way! Amy @ Fearless Homemaker

Ashley and additional voices... said...

They were awful! :) but I don't blame you, I fully believe I messed them up. I bought a new bag of M&M's today at the store, and I was going to make them tonight... but I have had a long day, so I will make them tomorrow :)

And thank you, it is a lot of fun coming up with things to do with her, or for our family. Especially holidays!

I have been reading through your blog, and am really enjoying it! Congrats on your little one, I bet you can't wait to meet each other :)