An Eggs-tra Special Day

Hello, thanks for stopping by.  Say, I forgot to say thank you to those who are following my blog - I'm at 400 now and that makes me happy!  I so enjoy meeting you all - when you join in, I try to pop over and visit your blog and return the favor.  I hope you had a great weekend.  We sure did - yesterday was a fun time all day.  Our DIL Kristi is a great party planner and surprised us straight away with an Easter basket for Dayle and I - along with the kids!  LOL!  We were so touched as no one has given US a basket since we were small children.  These wonderful hand painted eggs were in the basket - aren't they pretty?

Then, when my son hid eggs in the yard for an egg hunt - there were some especially for me.  :-D  The kids helped find mine.  Kristi came up with a great idea so the kids each got the same amount - she had the boys draw an egg out of a bag and they had to find the same egg design - footballs and soccer balls, etc.  So each of them got a dozen eggs filled with chocolates, etc.  Those pretty ones below are mine.  :-)

Our surprise baskets.

The boys showing me their bunnies and baskets.  Their mom and dad.. and Dayle's feet.  :-)

Grandpa and his basket of goodies and a bunny.  

Kristi spent hours in the kitchen putting together a snack buffet with a MineCraft theme.  All the boys had fun with this.

After our son Shawn and his family arrived we hunted eggs in the yard.  Mother nature was good to us and it was warm and dry and partly sunny.

The boys and their eggs.. the big boys used their riding helmets for baskets! LOL!

I noticed that the apple blossoms were opening so I had to go take a snapshot.

Such a pretty and fleeting bloom.. 

Forget-Me-Nots are popping out here and there.

Our wild garden of Purple Ajuga, Star-of-Bethlehem and see the tiny Forget-Me-Nots?

Above those flowers my Honeysuckle is beginning to bloom!

And the Pink Rosebud Azalea is beginning it's bloom.

The big floppy Rhododendron.

Our Elder flower is in bloom, too.

Red Azalea.

Want to smell my dark purple Lilac?  :-)

Our Stargazer Lilies are coming up nicely!

And then the boys wanted to ride their dirt bikes and quads so off we went to the pasture to watch them have fun.  Here is Caleb - just turned 6.

Here comes Gabriel down the hill.

Gabe zooms by and the storm clouds are moving closer.

Our four grandsons.. a good bunch of boys.

Our youngest son Travis joins the kids for a photo.

The coming storm.. 

And behind me the blue sky is in retreat.

2 of our pear trees - the one on the right is leafing out lushly.

I felt a raindrop so I headed back to the warmth of the farmhouse - this is our 25 foot tall old-fashioned farm lilac - all the good blooms are way up high!

Dayle roasted our big ham in his smoker/grill leaving the oven to me for my "Classic Bistro Style Gratin French Dauphinoise Potatoes" - I had to wing it as I didn't have quite enough potatoes, but we had enough for the dinner and everyone raved about them.  The obligatory traditional family photo before we dig in.  I raised my glass of ice water in a toast to the day and the family.

I sliced into the ham before I remembered to take a photo of our dinner.  I made sure to watch the asparagus closely, it gets done so fast!

Hayden requested a Black Forest Cake.. with marshmallows.  So, Kristi baked 2 round layers of rich chocolate cake from scratch, cut them in half so there were 3 layers, made a whipped cream frosting, added cherry pie filling to the top and sprinkled mini-marshmallows over it all.  :-)  She then got 5 pints of Haagen Dazs "Black Cherry Amaretto" gelato to serve it with.  Oh yum.. num num.  They put a 6 and 7 shaped candles on top, one for each boy.. we were singing Happy Birthday and Caleb blew both candles out in the middle of the song.. so we had to re-light the candles and start over.  LOL!  Fun times!

Lastly we had them open their presents - they got a LOT of Lego sets!  This should be fun!

Our daughter Amy lives in Ohio and she called us to wish us a happy day and she and her husband sent the boys these HUGE trucks and a plane each.  

We had a VERY busy and happy day full of activities and a wonderful dinner, I hope you had a great weekend, too.  ((hugs)), Teresa :-)