Easter egg hunt

Grammy and Poppy's neighborhood has an Easter egg hunt for the kids every year.  We have gone almost every year for the past few years.  This was the 1st year that Brody was "into it" though.  We had a tough time keeping him from the eggs before it started!  They split up the little kids from the big kids to make it fair which is nice but it makes it hard for me since the kids were then split up.  By the time I got over to where Travis was almost all of the "big kid eggs" were gone.  Oh well.  I hope you enjoy the pictures!

They are so ready!

Trying to take a pic of them together.....

Checking out the eggs

Cheese!

And he's off!

He was having SO much fun!

I go over to where Travis is and most of the eggs were gone already.....

Look at all of those eggs!!!

Easter clearance is at 50-70% off now!

Most local Target stores have marked their Easter candy to 50% off and most of their other Easter merchandise to 70% off.  Some stores have a lot left and others have very little.  It really depends.....everything they have left should go to 90% off on Monday.

Some things that I found the other day when it was 30% off......Easter colored goldfish for $1.32 and Springtime Market Pantry fruit snacks (box of 18) for $1.98.  If these are still left in the stores the deals will be even better!

There are also some great candy coupons around that can be used with the Easter candy.  You can find some links in this post HERE.  Using the coupons for the M&M's and the Snickers right now will get you some awesome prices on candy!

Happy shopping!

Coloring Easter eggs!

Just because we are out of town doesn't mean we don't dye Easter eggs!  For the last few years we have spent Easter at Grammy and Poppy's house.  It's the perfect time to visit them since the kids are on spring break and there aren't any sports to conflict/be missed.  So on Saturday after breakfast we got to work on our Easter eggs!  Brody actually got in on the fun a little bit too!

 

Two cute pics

I completely failed to get really any pictures of our 5 days with Tammy, Sean and Caroline.  My mom definitely got pictures but I didn't.  :(  We had a great 5 days and the boys and I were either with everyone out somewhere or at Mom and Dad's house watching the cousins play like crazy.  The time went by way too fast and Caroline is a totally cutie.  Here are the 2 pics that I got---on my phone.  lol

Mandy was attempting to play Sequence with Travis but she had 3 little helpers!

Brody and Annabelle were getting in some quality Aunt Tammy time.

Self portraits

Brody has my phone a lot as most of you know.  He sometimes watches videos or plays games but occasionally he will take numerous pictures of himself on my phone.  I don't always know this until I open my phone again later.......here is what I sometimes see......

Egg hunt at school!

Brody doesn't go to school on Fridays but the Friday before spring break his class had a small Easter party and egg hunt.  I brought Brody to school because I knew he would have a good time with his class mates and it would be good practice for the egg hunt at Grammy and Poppy's house the day before Easter. 

As I suspected he had a BLAST!  He was squealing like crazy when he got to the eggs and collected way more than his friends.  ;)  The teachers though evened out the bags so all of the kids got the same amount.  I am glad I took him because he loved it and I think the other kids were glad that he came!



Getting ready to head out

EGGS

 

 

 Brody and his friends from school--Jack, Kevin and David

 

Brody and Kevin

 



Tom Yum soup--review

I made this soup last week and thought I had reviewed it but......nope I hadn't.  :)  If you want to try and make it yourself you can find the recipe linked HERE.  There weren't that many ingredients in this recipe but there was one that is a little hard to find.  Just so you know......Tom Yum paste seems to only be found at an International grocery store.  Wegmans didn't even have it which shocked me a little because they have a pretty extensive international section.  I went to the "Grandmart" by our house and spent about 20 minutes looking for the paste in the asain isle. Finally I saw a wall of pastes---seriously 100+ little jars of paste and there must have been 8 different ones that said "Tom Yum" on them.  I just picked one and left.  lol

The recipe overall was very easy to make---and it was SO GOOD!  Very hot---too hot for kids probably the way the recipe is written but it tasted like the soup we get at our favorite Thai restaurant.  I know the picture doesn't show you much other than the color of the soup and a piece of the shrimp but man it was good.  We will most certainly be making this again very soon!  I'm so glad I stepped out of my "culinary comfort zone" to make this!

Turkey Shepherd's Pie--review

I made this dish on Sunday for St. Patrick's day.  Though in saying I was doing that someone asked if it was an Irish dish or an English dish---I looked around and found many sources that say it's an English originated dish and others that say it's Irish.  All that I know is I have seen it on the menu at every Irish restaurant I have been to and it was one of the few Irish dishes that I thought Travis would eat.  lol  By the way you can find the recipe HERE.

This recipe is VERY easy to make---I followed the recipe (more or less) except I noticed there were ZERO spices listed on the recipe.  I thought this was odd so I looked up what spices are generally in a Shepherd's Pie.  I added savory, rosemary and garlic salt when I had added the gravy to the turkey meat.  This smelled heavenly with the addition of the spices.  The original recipe called for just frozen peas and I like more of a mixed vegetable in my Shepherd's Pie so we went with that.

This was a complete hit!  It was ALL GONE after dinner!  A great addition to our "family favorites:".

Menu March 17-23

Sunday-  Turkey Shepherd's Pie
Monday -  Tom Yum Soup
Tuesday-  Freezer Fest :)
Wednesday-  Spaghetti and meatballs
Thursday-  Hockey night (6-730) aka eat on the fly
Friday-  Taco Night
Saturday-  Pizza Night

I am trying to get us to eat most of our meals lately from our pantry and freezer only---it always seems that we have too much stuff and I hate cleaning them out and finding things have expired.  So this week we have two new recipes this week and a few family favorites.  :)

I will review the new recipes this week---the Shepherd's Pie from last night was FABULOUS by the way. 

Look! It's Albert Einstein!

Over a week ago Travis had his "wax museum" at school.  The kids all were assigned a specific character and they had to pretend to be that person and give a speech about their life.  Travis wanted to be Albert Einstein and he got his wish.  It took a lot of work to get him to write the speech, practice it and make his board but in the end it got done so I shouldn't care.  lol  All of the kids did a great job--there were some awesome costumes!

You can view his entire speech and the madness in the cafeteria below:

The entry

There he goes.....

CHAOS--organized chaos (lol)

You can see Travis' white wig  ;)

Ready for someone to push his green button--they were frozen until you hit their button--then they came to life and gave you their speech

Albert and Daddy